Marcus Rutherford

Marcus Rutherford heads the European Litigation Group which comprises four offices; two in the UK (London and Coventry) and two in continental Europe (Paris and Munich). 

He joined Reed Smith in 2004 after 28 years practice as a commercial litigator. He has litigated and advised on a vast range of corporate and commercial issues including:

• commercial contractual disputes
• media and advertising issues
• shareholder and corporate governance issues
• administrative law
• copyright and technology disputes
• financial services and regulatory issues 

The unifying feature of this range of work has been that the cases have often raised complex questions of law or required high level tactical and strategic advice combined with a public interest/press interest dynamic.  

Media and Reputation Management Expertise

Marcus is known for advising in relation to a significant number of libel actions for publishers, broadcasters and plaintiffs; advising witnesses in high profile trials; advising companies in relation to reputation management issues; dealing with press issues and advising on allegations appearing on the internet.  He has also tackled a successful complaint to OFCOM relating to unfair treatment of a contributor on a BBC documentary; advised a well known public figures and journalists in relation to contractual arrangements with national newspapers and magazines and has advised on advertising regulations, advertising copy and copyright issues.

Channel 4 re Box Productions – acting for the broadcasters and producers of a programme which relied on a confidential source of information and the subsequent prosecution for Contempt of Court on the refusal by the company to comply with a Court Order requiring disclosure of that source.

Channel 4 re Official Secrets Act – advice in relation to a programme which revealed the (then) secret workings of the British security services.

Channel 4 re Bloody Sunday – advising Channel 4 and the production companies of two documentaries on Northern Ireland issues who were subpoenaed to give evidence to Lord Saville’s Inquiry into the events in Londonderry known as “Bloody Sunday”.

Channel 4 re Clive Ponting – Contempt of Court Orders made in relation to a televised reconstruction of a criminal trial, which led to a change in the law of Contempt of Court.

Channel 4 re Birmingham 6 – Contempt of Court Order made in relation to the television reconstruction of an appeal against conviction by the so called “Birmingham 6” who were later acquitted of their involvement in the IRA pub bombing campaigns of the 1980’s.

Channel 4 Staying Lost – advising the broadcaster and production company in relation to a social documentary into the lives of children living on the streets in Britain, which involved complex issues relating to the filming of children.

Peter Settelen – advising on the copyright and intellectual property issues relating to privately produced videos of Princess Diana and subsequent negotiations with US broadcasters for the publication of the video images in high audience documentaries in the US.

Saunders v Punch – issues of confidentiality and the conflict between the two important public interests free speech and privacy.

Arbitration/Alternative Dispute Resolution Expertise

Marcus has published over 450 fully reasoned arbitration awards and sat on a range of arbitration tribunals deciding disputes relating to international sale of ships, partnership disputes, media disputes, European funding issues, commission agent agreements and consumer law issues.  He lectures widely on arbitration law and practice and currently sits on the Board of Management of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators in London.

Thoughts on Advertising:  Recent years have seen an absolute surge in e-commerce as companies realise that the new market place is global and electronic.  It is no longer possible to look at the legal issues of trade, commerce and communication in terms of territorial jurisdiction alone when goods sold over the Internet in Munich can be bought in Minnesota and news published in Sheffield can be instantly accessed in Shanghai.  How we regulate (indeed, the extent to which we should regulate at all)  the press and protect reputation has become an issue which raises fundamental questions about our basic constitutional rights of Free Speech and Privacy, not merely in America but Europe too. Few of us believe in a free-for-all where anything can be published about anybody regardless of the consequences, but there is even less agreement about where the line of propriety should be drawn, and the next few years should see some extraordinary changes in legal theory as our legal systems struggle to catch up with technology.