Advocate Jan 2014

THE ADVOCATE VOL. 72 PART 1 JANUARY 2014
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ski (Hammerberg Lawyers LLP) and Darren Stewart (Fasken Martineau
DuMoulin LLP). Congratulations to all for successful campaigns.
Finishing off their mandated terms as members-at-large, in addition to
Ms. MacDonald and Mr. Fancourt-Smith (both mentioned above), are Sarah
Batut (Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP), Andrew Brine (Harper Grey
LLP), Stephanie Gutierrez (Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP) and
Nicholas Tsoi (Slater Vecchio LLP). The Vancouver Bar Association is
indebted to these individuals for their two years of service.
Also departing from the board in late 2013 were Patrick Cleary (Alexander
Holburn Beaudin & Lang LLP), the past-past president, and Michael
Bain (Hamilton Howell Bain & Gould) who, having assumed the reigns of
this magazine as editor, decided it was time to hang up his hat as secretarytreasurer
after 10 years of service to the VBA (well shy of the record held by
his predecessor, Miriam Kresivo, Q.C., who lasted 14 years).
Amendments to the U.K. Defamation Act, which came into force on January
1, 2014, deal with a website owner’s liability for defamatory comments
posted on his or her sites. The new provisions provide that website operators
have to notify posters of a complaint of defamation. Upon notification,
authors of the comments have five days to issue a written response outlining
whether they consent to the removal of the comments from the site. A
failure to respond places website operators under the obligation to delete
the comments within 48 hours of that five-day deadline expiring if they are
to avoid exposure to liability.
When notifying authors that their comments are subject to defamation
complaints, website operators would have to conceal the identity of the
complainant from those authors if such anonymization is sought by the
complainants.
In cases where the authors do not consent to the removal of the comments,
those individuals or businesses are required to inform website operators
of their name and address and tell the operator whether or not they
consent to the handing over their details to the complainant. A complainant
must be informed by the operator within 48 hours of an author’s response
and of the content of that response.
Website operators are then required to delete comments from their site
within two days of receiving a notice of complaint if it has “no means of contacting
the poster” through a “private electronic communication” channel,
such as via e-mail.
If authors who do respond to website operators’ notifications of a complaint
fail to provide details of their full name and address, the operators are required