Gideon Benaim won first place in the Partner of the Year category at the 2008 Lawyer Awards.
Gideon is a media litigator specialising in reputation protection for high-profile individuals and leading business entrepreneurs with extensive experience in privacy and defamation laws. Gideon has represented Oscar-winning film director Roman Polanski, British supermodel Naomi Campbell and Chairman and CEO of Las Vegas Sands Corp. Sheldon Adelson.
Gideon has represented Sheldon Adelson in a major defamation case over the past two years with Schillings senior partner Keith Schilling . The case was won in March 2008 after nearly two years of intense litigation with the Daily Mail issuing an apology and paying substantial damages and costs.
In May 2008 Gideon and Keith won a major privacy case in the Court of Appeal for Harry Potter author JK Rowling’s son, this case effectively establishes a law of privacy for children where the parents wish to protect their children from intrusive photography by the paparazzi.
“You just have to look at what happened to Diana and the impact that had on public perception of the aggressive tabloid press. We see it in the type of harassment people like Amy Winehouse and Britney Spears have endured. The law in relation to privacy is changing in favour of the individual and we have been and intend to continue to be instrumental in that change,” Gideon says.
Gideon successfully represented seven times Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong in a defamation suit against The Sunday Times in 2006. He also acted for celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay in suing the Evening Standard newspaper for defamation in 2006.
Gideon represented Roman Polanski, the director of “The Pianist” and “Chinatown,” in his successful bid in the House of Lords in 2005 to be allowed to give evidence in a defamation case via video link from France. It was the first time a claimant did not have to appear in person in an English court in such a case. The case then returned to the High Court where Gideon represented him until the conclusion of his successful libel trial.
Gideon also represented Naomi Campbell in, among other cases, her ground-breaking privacy action against the Daily Mirror which resulted in a landmark 2004 ruling by the House of Lords to protect personal privacy.
“ There is no doubt that the cases we are involved in and will continue to be involved in are changing the law and the way journalists and legal departments at media organisations approach matters,” he says.
Gideon worked with Keith Schilling in a ground-breaking case acting for the Law Society . The case resulted in a victory over the Department for Constitutional Affairs (DCA) in a judicial review relating to the retrospective application of rules on disclosure of documents in 2006. The privacy of thousands of solicitors’ clients was protected as a result.
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