'McLibel' campaigners win legal aid battle

[HootieMcBoob]

Very good news for pair sued by McDonalds for libel

Two environmental campaigners who took on hamburger chain McDonald's and lost today won their claim that the libel trial was unfair.

The European Court of Human Rights said the UK legal system breached the right to a fair trial and freedom of expression.

The verdict from the Strasbourg court is a last-minute victory for Helen Steel and David Morris - and could force the Government to change libel laws which they claimed stifled their free speech and favoured the rich.

Today's result signals the end of a David and Goliath struggle which pitted the impoverished campaigners from Tottenham, north London, against the power of a huge multi-national company.

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The rest:
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=611267

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[papau]

1. But they lost in Court on Libel - and that was not overturned? Why not?

???????

:-)

[KurtNYC]

2. That makes 2 recent defeats for the hamburger clown

Mickey D will payout $8.5 million to settle a suit which alleged that they misrepresented their progress in removing trans fat from their french fries and other products.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/02/11/transfats.settlement.reut/

This is in parallel to threatened lawsuits which allege that McDonald's misrepresents the health effects of its food in their marketing efforts (eg. showing athletes eating fench fries). Many have stated that people should not expect healthy food from McDonalds and have scoffed at such suits. However, McDonald's has seen fit to settle this lawsuit and focus more research on how to remove trans fat from their foods.

Trans fat is believed to cause between 30,000 and 100,000 premature deaths in the US each year.