Arron Banks loses libel action against reporter Carole Cadwalladr

Carole Cadwalladr’s lawyer had argued the case was an attempt to silence the journalist’s reporting on ‘matters of the highest public interest’. Photograph: James Veysey/Rex/Shutterstock

The multimillionaire Brexit backer Arron Banks has lost his libel action against the Observer and Guardian journalist Carole Cadwalladr, in a significant decision for public interest journalism.

Banks, who funded the pro-Brexit Leave.EU campaign group, sued Cadwalladr personally over two instances in which she said the businessman was lying about his relationship with the Russian state – one in a Ted Talk and the other in a tweet.