Independent:
Ireland may be desperately short of cash these days, but one Irish businessman has just been awarded €10m (£8.5m) in a spectacular libel victory in the Dublin courts.
The damages were awarded to a wealthy executive who took a case against his former employer, Kenmare Resources, claiming it had insinuated he had made inappropriate sexual advances to a female colleague.
Donal Kinsella, a former director of the mining company, accepted that he had appeared naked at the door of company secretary Deirdre Corcoran during a business trip to Mozambique.
But the court heard he had a habit of sleepwalking and that on the night in question he had been drinking and taking painkillers.
The award, a record for an Irish court, was made by a jury of seven men and four women, who deliberated for three hours. The judge, Mr Justice Eamon De Valera, put a stay on the award with the exception of €500,000. Mr Kinsella said he was "exhilarated and vindicated" by the verdict,while Kenmare Resources issued a statement saying it was shocked and intends to "immediately and vigorously appeal". Irish libel regulations are under review at the moment, after a number of substantial awards in recent years, but none of these reached €2m. The award of €10m thus caused surprise in legal circles.
The court had heard that the episode, in 2007, had made Mr Kinsella the subject of jokes, jibes and cat-calling, making him a national and international "laughing stock". It was said that people at the Galway Races had sung: "Yes, we have no pyjamas." A company press release relating to the episode had conveyed, it was argued, that something juicy was going on in the jungle, with Mr Kinsella trying to "jump the company secretary".
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The jury seems to think the company jumped the shark in its reaction to the sleepwalking. It probably comes down to the
Southern US distinction between naked and nekkid. If you are naked, it simply means you do not have any clothes on. If you are nekkid, it means you do not have any cloths on and you are up to something.
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