Statement from Dennis Rice on the settlement:
“I brought an IMPRESS claim against Byline Media Holdings Limited relating to allegations published that had been made against me in a witness statement by a solicitor in High Court proceedings. I maintain that these allegations were wrong and defamatory of me and never should have been made. I am pleased to say that I have settled my claim with Byline Media Holdings Limited and they have removed my name from the article in question.”
Statement from Mr Rice regarding the Byline Times:
“In 2019 Byline Times – the sister publication of Byline Media – published two articles which reported on my costs during this Arbitration to be £60,000. In one of those articles an application I made to the High Court in support of this Application was described by Byline Times as “pointless” and “scurrilous,” while the other was included in an article headlined: “A reporter sentenced to a year of terrible legal arguments.” I was unable to comment on either because I was in this Arbitration, which requires confidentiality, but am doing so now by way of a Right of Reply. To begin I was given leave by the Arbitrator to make the High Court application, so while it was unsuccessful it is inaccurate to describe it as “pointless” or “scurrilous” – a fact Byline knew at the time as the other party in the Arbitration. Indeed, the judgement from the High Court makes no mention of the judge saying my case was either “scurrilous” or “pointless.” This is a pure invention on the part of Byline. Secondly my costs ended up being half the £60,000 and were in any case dwarfed by Byline spending more than five times this amount defending this Arbitration, with the bulk of this amount going on an application to have the case dismissed, which was thrown out. So I do not think I need lessons on “terrible legal arguments” or costs from Byline.”
