Ben Silverstone

Practice Areas

Ben specialises in media and information law and also has a substantial practice in large-scale / group litigation and public and human rights law.

Media and information law

Ben’s wide-ranging practice covers defamation, privacy, data protection, breach of confidence, harassment, reporting restrictions, freedom of information, production orders contempt of court and related areas. He has acted in many leading cases, including:

• Duke of Sussex v NGN (limitation in privacy claim)

• Wright v McCormack (libel trial; appeal on defamation damages)

• Al-Masarir v Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (privacy claim relating to spyware use)

• R v Sarker (Re BBC) (CoA decision on reporting restrictions)

• Stunt v Associated Newspapers (CoA decision on journalistic exemption under DPA 1998)

• Vidal-Hall v Google (CoA decision on damages in data protection claims).

Large-scale / group litigation

Ben is instructed by NGN in the Mobile Telephone Voicemail Interception Litigation and has acted in the British Airways Data Event Group Litigation and the Construction Industry Vetting Information Group Litigation.

Public and human rights law

Ben is regularly instructed in judicial reviews and civil actions raising human rights issues. Prominent cases include R (LXP) v Central Criminal Court (police seizure of journalist’s material); R (Miranda) v SSHD (CoA decision on Terrorism Act 2000 powers / Article 10 ECHR); and Allbutt v Ministry of Defence (Supreme Court decision on combat immunity).

Ben is a member of the Attorney General’s B Panel for Junior Counsel to the Crown.