Supreme Court tells billionaire to take lawsuit to Israel
Barred from suing Israeli paper in Canada
The billionaire Mitchell Goldhar, a property developer who brought Walmart to Canada as founder of Smartcentres, has lost a major case at the Supreme Court of Canada about libel tourism.
The top court found his defamation complaint against the Israeli newspaper Haaretz should be heard by an Israeli court, not least because the allegedly libellous news article was read by only about 250 people online in Canada, and 70,000 people, online and in print, in Israel.
The decision clarifies the rules of how to choose the proper forum for legal disputes that span different jurisdictions, and it draws a bright new red line on the field of libel tourism, in which wealthy complainants shop around for the most sympathetic court. Courts have found this an increasingly troublesome practice as the internet has let publishing untether itself from geography and jurisdiction.
Haaretz, a major Israeli media outlet, argued that allowing Goldhar to sue in Canada would lead to libel chill, because Canadian media could likewise be exposed to lawsuits from anywhere, including in legal systems that are less bound by the right to free expression.
Haaretz lost in its efforts to block the case at every lower court, but its victory at the Supreme Court means it can now collect costs from Goldhar for the entire saga, which, given the heavyweight counsel involved, are substantial.
Goldhar is from a prominent family that built its fortune on property development. His grandparents immigrated from Poland and ran a cigar shop in Toronto. His father is Leo Goldhar, who built a property development company, First Professional Management, Inc., and helped build Toronto’s main Jewish community centre, the Prosserman JCC.
In the 1990s, Mitchell began developing highway shopping centres, starting in several spots in northwestern Toronto suburbs, then Barrie, Belleville, Thunder Bay, New Liskeard, Gatineau, and elsewhere.
Mitchell, a lifelong hockey fan, is rarely in the news, but he drew attention in 2010 when he paid $1.2 million at auction for Paul Henderson’s 1972 Team Canada jersey. Now in his late 50s, he was 11 years old when Henderson scored the goal to win the Summit Series.
The next year, he purchased Maccabi Tel Aviv F.C., one of Israel’s most successful soccer teams, from Russianborn Toronto billionaire Alex Shnaider, the co-founder of Midland Group who was Donald Trump’s partner in building the former Trump International Hotel and Tower Toronto, since renamed the Adelaide Hotel Toronto.
It was this foray from property development into sports management that led to the allegedly defamatory article, in Haaretz’s sports section.
Published on Nov. 29, 2011, the article was critical of Goldhar’s management style, both of the soccer team and his Canadian business, saying it is based on “over concentration bordering on megalomania,” and referring to his “penny pinching” and “lack of long term planning.”
It also quoted an unnamed club insider saying Goldhar’s plan was to “wear down anybody who he wants to get rid of, until they’ve had enough and decide to leave of their own accord.”
Goldhar sued a month later, claiming the article defamed him with claims of a personality disorder and mistreatment of employees, by getting facts wrong, and by claiming he is “irrationally thrifty concerning benefits to employees,” as a lower court described it.
Haaretz failed to convince lower courts to block the case as being in the wrong forum, but its success at the top court means the Canadian action is stayed.
The paper repeated some of its allegedly defamatory words in a news article on Wednesday.
“While multijurisdictional defamation claims are not new, the exponential
(HAARETZ) HAS ESTABLISHED THAT HOLDING A TRIAL IN ISRAEL WOULD BE FAIRER AND MORE EFFICIENT.
increase in multijurisdictional publications over the internet has led to growing concerns about libel tourism and the possible assumption of jurisdiction by an unlimited number of forums,” wrote Justice Suzanne Côté for the majority in the split decision. “The current rules for the assumption and exercise of jurisdiction are able to address these challenges so long as the underlying principles of stability and fairness are kept in mind… On a robust and careful assessment of the relevant factors tainted by these errors, Israel is a clearly more appropriate forum.
“Ultimately, (Haaretz) has established that holding a trial in Israel would be fairer and more efficient. Israel is clearly the more appropriate forum,” she wrote.