A British court has ordered intelligence firm Black Cube to pay £350,000 legal costs to Israeli investigative show "Uvda" after it withdrew its defamation case against the program, "The Guardian" reports. Ilana Dayan is the lead investigator in the popular investigative program.
The libel case was reportedly filed by Black Cube in the UK after the investigative TV show alleged in June 2019 that Israeli billionaire Idan Ofer, had hired the firm in 2014 to investigate the then-finance minister, Yair Lapid, and other officials.
Black Cube denied the allegations.
A spokesperson for Idan Ofer confirmed that he had contracted the agency for a brief period, but said Ofer ended up not using Black Cube’s information, and that the intelligence had been gathered from public sources.
Black Cube, which has offices in Tel Aviv, London and Madrid decided to try the case in London because defamation settlements are usually higher.
Black Cube commented, "The company, according to the recommendation of its English lawyers, has decided to discontinue its defamation claim in the UK against Uvda for a documentary which they broadcasted more than one year ago. The company has been advised that since its income in the year following the broadcast has increased, the argument that the company has suffered financial loss because of the broadcast has fallen away. The company continues to state that the broadcast was wrong and seriously misleading and always acts strictly according to the law in every jurisdiction in which it operates."
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on November 26, 2020
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