O’Leary’s defeats

Defamation humiliation and continental strike

RYANAIR has lost its High Court action for defamation against three pilots.

A jury found that a September 2013 email, entitled ‘Pilot update: what the markets are saying about Ryanair’, did mean that the airline was guilty of market manipulation.

However, in its majority verdict of nine or more, it found that Ryanair had not proved malice by the three defendants, Evert Van Zwol, John Goss and Ted Murphy. As the court had found that the update was published on an occasion of qualified privilege, which is only lost where malice is proven, there was no defamation.

Mr Justice Bernard Barton, on the application of Paul O’Higgins SC, for the defendants, dismissed the case and granted costs. He put a stay on the costs in the event of an appeal following an application from Thomas Hogan SC, for Ryanair.

In a statement afterwards, read by Evert Van Zwol, on behalf of the Ryanair Pilots Group (RPG), he said from the outset that the objective of the RPG was to represent the interests of all pilots flying with Ryanair and to help them bring issues of concern to the attention of management.

“We wish to dedicate today’s victory to all Ryanair pilots who are standing strong for each other around Europe and have, through their collective courage, succeeded in having Ryanair change its long standing policy of union recognition,” he said.

Mr Van Zwol referred to an Irish Independent report of statements made by Ryanair chief operations officer, Peter

Bellew, to pilots at Stansted, that the airline had grown too fast, had a culture in which people were discouraged from raising issues and had become miserable, even at head office.

Mr Bellew also said, among other things, that Ryanair needed to start treating people like normal human beings and that there was a very basic lack of trust that had to be restored.

The RPG took the opportunity to echo that sentiment, Mr Van Zwol said, and that all staff should be treated with dignity in the workplace.

Ryanair brought its case against the three who are members of the RPG interim council, as publishers of the update which went to 2,289 Ryanair pilots. They denied defamation and denied the meaning attributed to the words of the update by Ryanair.

They also said the words had the benefit of qualified privilege, whereby a statement published to someone with an interest in receiving such information is protected, as long as it is not motivated by malice.

The airline claimed that by publishing that incorrect statement, the defendants were say- ing, by innuendo or insinuation, the airline misled investors, knowingly facilitated insider dealing by management, was guilty of market manipulation and conspired with management to abuse the markets.

While the jury answered yes to the question of whether the update meant Ryanair was guilty of market manipulation, it said no to questions that it meant the airline had misled investors, knowingly facilitated insider dealing by managers or that Ryanair conspired with managers to abuse the market for its shares.