Evony case against British blogger withdrawn

Sam Varghese
Saturday, 15 May 2010 12:18

IT Policy - Regulation

The Chinese owners of the massive multiplayer online game, Evony, dropped a libel case against British blogger Bruce Everiss after two days of hearings, the Guardian reports.

Evony, it may be recalled, had filed the case in the NSW Supreme Court in response to a number of critical posts by Everiss on his blog. The hearing of the case, filed in September last year, was scheduled for mid-December but was delayed because Evony switched its legal representation from a NSW firm to one in Canberra.

The Guardian quoted Benjamin Gifford, Evony's "vice development director", as saying the case had been withdrawn at the end of March because of criticism from those playing the game.

At that stage, Evony was left with a legal bill of $114,000 for defence costs, and had to pay $80,000 by April 12 to avoid the resumption of the case.

This payment was made on the specified date to Everiss' solicitors.

The case was the second bid by an individual or company to try and sue an individual or company in a jurisdiction other than the primary one in which it operates.

Back in 2002, the Melbourne mining magnate, Joseph Gutnick, sued Dow Jones in Victoria over comments it had published which he claimed were defamatory. Gutnick won the right to sue in Victoria though Dow Jones is based in the US as the comments in question were also available online. The company settled the case in 2004.

The case filed by Evony differed in that the company had no physical presence in Australia. The company is a registered corporation in the state of Delaware in the US.