Designed to deter The impact of Slapp lawsuits on journalists and free speech

Eliot Higgins found out two weeks before Christmas 2021. The news came in a sevenpage letter sent by lawyers acting for the head of Russia's Wagner militia group.

It informed Higgins, the founder of the Bellingcat media group, that he faced defamation proceedings in the British courts.

For the Guardian journalist Tom Burgis, then at the Financial Times, the letter warning of action against him by the mining company ENRC, a case that would have cost more than £1m had it not been thrown out by a judge, came just before the birth of his youngest child.

Catherine Belton, now working in the UK for the Washington Post, received several letters: three oligarchs and a Russian state oil company were all bringing cases against her and the publisher of her book, Putin's People, in what has been described as a "legal pile-on".

The journalists have two things in common: they are respected investigative reporters in Britain, and victims of what campaigners describe as abusive lawsuits designed to shut down their stories.

These are not isolated cases. A survey in 2020 by the Foreign Policy Centre found those reporting from outside the UK on financial crime and corruption face almost as many threats of court action in Britain as they do from the rest of Europe and the US combined. Some call it lawfare. Others use the term Slapp: strategic litigation against public participation.

Such is the concern about the impact on free speech and the public's right to know that the editors of the UK's leading news organisations, from the Telegraph to ITN, have signed a letter urging ministers to include legislation in next week's king's speech.

The UK Anti-Slapp coalition of campaigners and media groups (including the Guardian) has drawn up a model law that would allow judges to dismiss abusive cases early on, before costs mount. It would also cap costs, and force claimants who bring vexatious suits to pay damages to the defendant.