Forty-four new SLAPPs were recorded in Malta in 2022, a significant increase over the four that were registered in 2021, a report compiled by the Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation on behalf of the Coalition Against SLAPPs (CASE) in Europe says.

This was the highest number of SLAPPs since 2017, when 33 had been filed against Caruana Galizia before she was murdered in October that year.

Year after year, SLAPPs are increasingly a worrying threat to democracy across Europe – the number of SLAPPs recorded in the Coalition Against SLAPPs in Europe (CASE) database has increased from 570 cases in 2022 to over 820 cases in 2023. Since the first CASE SLAPPs report was published in March 2022, a notable number of SLAPP lawsuits have been mapped in Malta, France, Croatia, Greece, the United Kingdom, Turkey, and Georgia.

Strategic lawsuits (litigation) against public participation (SLAPP) are lawsuits intended to intimidate and silence critics by burdening them with the cost of a legal defence until they abandon their criticism or opposition.

The report shows that out of 47 European countries, the number of SLAPPs per capita is highest in Malta, with a score of 19.93 per 100,000 population - more than double the 2021 per capita rate (8) and considerably ahead of the second ranking country, Slovenia, which scored 2.02 SLAPPs per capita in 2022. The high increase in Malta from 2021 to 2022 is mostly due to the government challenging in court the 40 Freedom of Information requests filed by the editor of the Maltese online investigative portal, The Shift News.   

Other general aspects of the report update

SLAPPs are an increasing problem across Europe. CASE’s SLAPP database increased from 570 cases in 2022 to 820 in June 2023.

161 SLAPPs were registered in 2022, an increase from 135 in 2021.

The most common legal theory for the SLAPPs filed between 2010 and 2022 was defamation (590), followed by breach of privacy (41), and FOI appeals (40). In the vast majority of cases, the target remains an individual, as opposed to an organisation.

9.5% (81) of the cases recorded from 2010 till 2022 were cross-border, as defined by the traditional understanding of the concept (i.e. plaintiff and defendant domiciled in different countries), underscoring the need to include the broadest, most inclusive definition of “cross-border” in national anti-SLAPP legislation to protect as many public watchdogs as possible.

The three most common targets of SLAPPs are all media-related: journalists, media outlets, and editors, in that order. Activists and NGOs are the fourth and fifth most common SLAPP targets.

The most common type of SLAPP offenders are businesspersons (335) followed by politicians (227), and State-owned entities (113) in third place.

The issues that most frequently triggered the filing of SLAPPs were corruption, government, business, and environment, in that order.

In 2022, lawsuits costs included exorbitant demands in damages, with the highest totalling some €17.6 million. The lowest damages claim was a mere €1, as a symbolic gesture. The median value of damages claimed was €15,150, and the average €360,659.

In 8.3% of the cases in 2022, defendants faced criminal repercussions such as incarceration.

In CASE’s first report, the data collected covered 29 European countries, namely; Albania, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Kosovo, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom, and Ukraine.

Since then, lawsuits from other countries have been identified, broadening the geographical spread of CASE’s analysis while mirroring the pan-European nature of the issue. These countries are Georgia, North Macedonia, Greece, Cyprus, Moldova, Czech Republic and Sweden. CASE has therefore now identified SLAPP lawsuits in 35 countries across Europe. 

The findings of CASE’s research presented in this report indicate that year after year, SLAPPs are increasingly a worrying threat to democracy across Europe.

On a rolling basis, CASE is identifying an increasing number of vexatious lawsuits that shut down acts of participation, and the list of countries around Europe that are home to such lawsuits is growing. The findings of this report show that in 8.3% of the cases in 2022, defendants faced criminal repercussions, such as incarceration.

The median value of damages claimed was €15,150, and the average €360,659.

The report in full may be seen here