Law professor: No case against Business Insider

Matt Stieb of New York Magazine’s Intelligencer interviewed Edward Klaris, an adjunct professor at Columbia Law School and former counsel at Condé Nast, about whether billionaire Bill Ackman and his wife have a case against Business Insider.

Here is an excerpt:

Ackman has lashed out on social media and threatened to “unleash hell” on Business Insider for what he describes as “false reporting.” But does the famously litigious businessman have a case?

I do not believe he has a valid claim against Business Insider on behalf of his wife. It would obviously be his wife who is the plaintiff, not him, but he would pay for it. A key component of a libel claim is that the plaintiff — in this case, Neri Oxman — would have to prove falsity. That would be the threshold question. She would have to allege that she did not plagiarize. She has already admitted to plagiarizing, and there are plenty of comparisons out there of what she wrote and what was originally on Wikipedia. It’s clear that there’s copying. I can’t see how they can get through the threshold question of falsity.

Read more here.