The Sunday Express has agreed to pay 'substantial' libel damages to a fund manager and its executives over an article that alleged they were exploiting investments from small investors for their own personal gain.
The case relates to the Express headline in July 2008:"David Cameron’s friend and £1bn he won’t give back." That article suggested that the executives of a fund management company, Pentagon Capital Management, were using investors' funds for their own gain with no intent of repaying them.
It was basically a stitch up and secured traction in the media by virtue of the fact that one of Richard Desmond's family members had investments in the funds. Surely, Desmond was not seeking to use one of his publications to put forward this allegation?
As it happened such allegations as were being advanced could not be substantiated by Express Newspapers. Motto of the story is that even if you own a paper, if you can't make what you allow to be printed in it stand up then you are open to legal action.
So what the fund managers may have lost in performance on the markets last year they may have made up through their libel settlement.
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