There are very few cases in the news media sector that can claim the status of landmark judgments. Jameel v The Wall Street Journal Europe is one of them.

The Reynolds decision in the House of Lords in 2001 set out a list of matters – interpreted as a rigid series of 10 specific hurdles – which were relevant in establishing the Reynolds defence. If the respondent fell at any of these hurdles then the defence went down. This served to render Reynolds a very difficult (and risky) defence to run.