For Immediate Release

Contact: Judith Platt

Ph: 202-220-4551

Publishers Express Disappointment in Ehrenfeld Ruling

Washington, DC, December 20, 2007:  The Association of American Publishers called today’s ruling that New York courts lack jurisdiction to hear Rachel Ehrenfeld’s case “a deep disappointment” for publishers and other First Amendment advocates, but vowed to continue fighting libel tourism.  AAP was one of a number of media organizations who filed a friend-of-the-court brief urging the New York Court of Appeals to allow Ehrenfeld to proceed with her case.

Ehrenfeld, the U.S. author of Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed and How to Stop It, was sued in Great Britain under their notoriously plaintiff-friendly libel laws by Saudi billionaire Khalid bin Mahfouz.  The suit was brought despite the fact that neither Ehrenfeld nor bin Mahfouz lived in England and that her book was never published there. After refusing to participate in the suit and being hit with a default judgment of liability and monetary damages, Ehrenfeld went into federal court in New York seeking to have the foreign judgment declared unenforceable in the United States.  In April 2006, a federal district court dismissed her case, saying it lacked personal jurisdiction over bin Mahfouz under New York's “long-arm statute.”  That statute allows courts to exercise personal jurisdiction over non-residents who "transact business" within the state where the lawsuit arises out of the non-resident’s contact with the state. The district court found that bin Mahfouz's actions taken in New York in connection with his U.K. libel suit (serving legal papers, sending emails) did not constitute transacting business. On appeal, the Second Circuit of Appeals found that New York courts had not addressed application of the long-arm statute in this context. Recognizing that there were important First Amendment implications, the Second Circuit asked New York State’s highest court to rule on whether the actions alleged constituted "transacting business" in New York.

The ruling handed down today by the New York Court of Appeals found that bin Mahfouz’s actions did not meet the statutory standard of a “sustained and substantial transaction of business in New York.”  

“Although the court ruled on a very narrow issue, stressing that they were not asked to address the propriety of English libel law, we are very disappointed that Ehrenfeld’s case can’t proceed on the merits,” said Judith Platt, who directs the work of AAP’s Freedom to Read Committee. “Cynical ‘libel tourists’ such as bin Mahfouz represent a very real threat to American authors and publishers, and AAP will continue seeking every possible means to defuse that threat,” Ms. Platt said.

The Association of American Publishers is the national trade association of the U.S. book publishing industry. AAP’s approximately 300 members include most of the major commercial book publishers in the United States, as well as smaller and non-profit publishers, university presses and scholarly societies. AAP members publish hardcover and paperback books in every field, educational materials for the elementary, secondary, post-secondary and professional markets, scholarly journals, computer software and electronic products and services.  The Association represents an industry whose very existence depends upon the free exercise of rights guaranteed by the First Amendment.

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