Nigel Tait

Information about the specialist

Practice Areas

Nigel is Carter-Ruck’s Managing Partner and Head of the firm’s Defamation and Media Law department. His practice encompasses reputation, media and privacy and commercial litigation.

REPUTATION, MEDIA AND PRIVACY

Nigel is a leader in this field. He is ranked as one of only two Star individuals in the Defamation and Reputation Management section of Chambers and Partners Client’s Guide to Solicitors

Nigel has secured numerous apologies for clients on newspaper front pages, and on television and radio, many settlements involving damages in six figures, and substantial awards at trial, including the highest ever defamation award to a company.

Nigel has obtained many injunctions – including in the leading case PJS v News Group Newspapers – restraining infringement of his clients’ privacy by the press or former associates. He has prevented the publication of many articles about clients, often by means of a phone call or letter.

Nigel has also acted for many clients who were to be featured on TV news documentaries like Panorama and Dispatches, securing either their complete removal from the programme or the removal of defamatory allegations.

Nigel has worked on four Law Society Committees looking into reforms to libel practice, privacy law and civil procedure. He has spoken on three occasions at the Oxford Union Debating Society on libel and privacy and chairs the annual White Paper defamation and privacy conference.

COMMERCIAL LITIGATION

Nigel has acted in numerous actions for breach of contract, professional negligence, financial mis-selling, breach of trust and breach of fiduciary duty winning tens of millions of pounds for clients in such cases over the last few years.

Nigel has successfully sued banks, pension advisers, and financial advisers in many cases where the clients required a safe or cautious investment but lost money.

Nigel has also obtained injunctions for clients against former employees acting in breach of restrictive covenants or who have used confidential information taken from former employers in setting up their own businesses or working for competitors.