The sucker punch has been coming ever since the press – with hundreds of local newspaper editors up front – tried to fend off the supposed royal charter regulatory menace of article 40 (the one where publishers pay legal costs, win or lose). Lord Justice Leveson’s insistence on a regulator offering cheap arbitration was a terrible sticking point, the editors said: a final burden on a struggling industry. Which, of course, made arbitration itself the litmus test for MPs and ministers wondering what to do next.
Thus the culture, media and sport committee now gives Ipso (the non-Leveson-compliant regulator almost everyone has joined) a year to implement an acceptable arbitration scheme. If it doesn’t, the baton of section 40 recognition passes to its sanctified (but scantily favoured) rival Impress. Either Ipso gets its act together, or nemesis – and the secretary of state – follows.
Yes, but which scheme do you pick? Impress, asking £75 a time at the start of a three- to six-month road? Or Ipso, with super-silky barristers eager to sort you out for a downpayment of £300, possibly with much more to follow?
One basic difference is that Impress caps arbitrators’ fees at £3,500 win or lose, and no legal costs if you win the case. The plaintiff can’t lose financially; binding participation in arbitration is nil problem there. No wonder the local press don’t like the sound of that. Ipso is rather loftier in its costings and more flexible in its obligations, but you know what, and who, you’re getting. Can’t we have some hard data to help make up our minds?
That rather depends on whether the demand for arbitration is really as big as its champions make out. So far, though you can already take on the giants of Fleet Street via Ipso or the minnows via Impress, no one has come forward. It may be that ordinary complaints regulation is enough. It may be that no-win-no-fee solicitors have got the best of the market anyway. But can’t we at least find out before climbing Molehill Mountain? Why can’t arbitration produce one scheme that covers all?
