SLAPP thwarted? Mark Harrison CEO of Praxis Group Ltd

Is this a SLAPP that has been thwarted? This week the High Court handed down Judgement in a matter between businessman (and CEO of Praxis Group Ltd) Mark Harrison and the owner of a landscaping business called Alastair Cameron.

What Happened?

The claim related to Mr Harrison’s request under GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018 to have access to the identities of those whom some telephone recordings were sent to, which were Harrison making a number of threats.

The essence of the claim is that Mr Cameron had not been paid by Mr Harrison for works undertaken, and had communicated that to other people on site whilst working at one of Mr Harrison’s properties. Seemingly, this was reported back to Mr Harrison, who lost his temper with Mr Cameron in a series of recorded telephone calls.

The telephone calls were of Mr Harrison speaking to Mr Cameron in an aggressive and threatening manner, including threatening that Mr Cameron would “have a visit from two of [Mr Harrison’s] friends from Manchester”; him saying “I tell you what I tell you what stay where you are, now, at the farm, I’m coming down to see you” and “I will see you in a couple of hours and then we will thrash it out, THRASH being the operative word”.

Mrs Justice Steyn to found:

[The]….. characterisation of Mr Harrison’s behaviour during those calls as seriously and persistently menacing. It is true, as Mr Harrison asserted, that he wanted Mr Cameron to “go away”. But it is manifest that to achieve that object Mr Harrison resorted to serious and ugly threats of violence to intimidate Mr Cameron into compliance….

Ultimately, the recordings of Mr Harrison were somehow disseminated to stakeholders of the Grosvenor Shopping Centre in Chester, which was open for acquisition, and Praxis Group were looking to bid for it. The bid failed, and Harrison appeared to blame the failed bid on the recordings.

However, as Mrs Justice Steyn found in her Judgement, this potentially was not the only issue of causation. A separate Judgement handed down by His Honour Judge Hodge KC made separate findings that Mark Harrison was abusive and bully, and was highly critical of him – this was a Judgement that had been read by those stakeholders.

The claim before Steyn J, was under the GDPR and Data Protection Act; Harrison was demanding to know who had been sent the recordings by Mr Cameron [115]:

Mr Harrison is seeking the identities of the recipients in order to be able to exercise his other rights under the UK GDPR, as well as, if appropriate, pursuing other legal remedies. Mr Harrison believes that the Recordings were deliberately disseminated into the investment property industry by a person or persons to cause him loss and damage; and that they resulted in very significant financial damage. He wishes to identify the individual(s) responsible and consider all his legal options

Harrison had stated he had “no intention of ‘threatening’ or ‘harassing’ any of the recipients” of the Recordings [126], but this is something Steyn J found to be unlikely with “incontrovertible evidence”. In particular there were two striking factors to Harrison’s approach:

….setting [Mr Harrison’s] solicitors onto at least 23 employees of ACL, directing [Subject Access Requests] to each of them individually and, even when the Defendants’ solicitors pleaded with them to desist (on the basis that [the limited company] is the [data] controller), they wrote further threatening letters to the cohort of [the limited company’s] employees, developing those threats in respect of some.

And additionally:

…. Mr Harrison also set his solicitors onto……. a friend of Mr Cameron and godmother to one of his children, who is unconnected to [the limited company]. [the friend] uses her given name [Person X] for professional purposes and Mr Cameron is only connected to her on social media using her given name. [it was submitted] that Mr Harrison has failed to explain how any connection between Mr Cameron and [the friend] was made (other than an opaque reference in his oral evidence to his solicitors undertaking “due diligence”), given that Mr Cameron is unaware of anything in the public domain that would connect [the friend], by that name, to him.

Ultimately Harrison’s claim was dismissed on the grounds Mr Cameron as an individual was not a data controller, and to protect right of others who may face potential harassment and/or unjustified legal threats [127]:

Nor was it unreasonable, in my view, for the Defendants to take the view that the letters sent by Mr Harrison’s solicitors, on his instructions, to about two dozen employees of [the limited company] were intimidating and unwarranted in circumstances where [the limited company] had accepted it was the controller. While it may be said that the initial [Subject Access Requests] were in fairly standard form (albeit they were sent to individual employees of a company, rather than the controller), follow up letters to such individuals included assertions that “you are required by law to respond” (original emphasis), “you are in breach of Article 15 UK GDPR”, and threats to issue legal proceedings.

Opinion – SLAPP Thwarted?

On the face of it it Mark Harrison is an extremely aggressive individual, and litigator.

One would have hoped that his solicitors would have realised after sending 3 letters enough was enough – but they sent 23 – or potentially 46 if each of the 23 employees were sent chasers! They then proceeded to contact random people on social media making the same demands.

Ostensibly, this is the sort of conduct that would amount to a SLAPP. This is especially so as the conduct described by the learned Judge appears to fly in the face of the Warning Notice issued by the Solicitors Regulatory Authority concerning SLAPPs.

Whatever Mark Harrison intended to do with the identities of those in receipt of the recordings – it is clear from his own conduct and that of his solicitors it would have involved more legal threats and potentially spurious legal proceedings against individuals, probably with far less financial means than him to instruct legal representation. This despite the fact it was Harrison’s own conduct, which on the face it, caused the Grosvenor Shopping Centre deal to fall through.

For these reasons, it is apparent that Mrs Justice Steyn’s decision may have well have thwarted a potential SLAPP!