Strategic lawsuits against public participation (“SLAPPs”) have remained firmly on the agenda in 2026.
The first judicial consideration of the SLAPP provisions in the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 (“ECCTA”) has provided some useful guidance on the current statutory regime, while renewed parliamentary activity shows continuing momentum for broader reform. At the same time, recent regulatory proceedings brought by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (the “SRA”) demonstrate the risks of allowing the anti-SLAPP sentiment to override careful legal and regulatory analysis and inhibit access to justice.
This article reflects on the current status of the statutory SLAPPs regime, recent developments and the road ahead.
The current statutory SLAPPs regime
The current statutory SLAPPs regime under sections 194 and 195 ECCTA, which came into effect on 18 June 2025, is limited in scope. With reference to the definition of a “SLAPP claim” under section 195 ECCTA, the regime applies only where the information in question relates to economic crime and is disclosed for a purpose related to the public interest in combating economic crime. In addition, the claimant’s behaviour must have, or be intended to have, the effect of restraining the defendant’s freedom of speech and causing harassment, alarm, distress, expense or other harm or inconvenience beyond that ordinarily encountered in properly conducted litigation.
CPR 3.4(2)(d), introduced pursuant to section 194(1) ECCTA), allows the court to strike out the claim where the definition of a “SLAPP claim” is met and if the claimant is unable to show that it is more likely than not that the claim would succeed at trial. That is a more demanding threshold than the “no reasonable grounds” or “no real prospect of success” tests applied respectively in ordinary strike-out and summary judgment applications, and it places the evidential burden on the claimant, being the party who brought the SLAPP claim.
Section 194(4) also establishes additional costs protection for defendants: in respect of a “SLAPP claim”, the court may not order the defendant to pay the claimant’s costs unless the defendant’s misconduct justifies that result.
The current framework is therefore limited both in its focus on economic crime and by the need to establish the claimant’s improper intentions before there is any scope to strike out the claim on the basis of its lack of merit.
Kamal: the first application of the statutory SLAPPs regime
On 11 March 2026, the High Court handed down judgment in Kamal v Tax Policy Associates Ltd [2026] EWHC 551 (KB), the first case in which the court considered the statutory SLAPPs regime under ECCTA.
Mr Setu Kamal, a barrister, brought libel and malicious falsehood claims against Tax Policy Associates and Dan Neidle arising from an article published by them criticising tax avoidance schemes marketed by a firm called Arka Wealth, with which Mr Kamal was associated. The defendants applied for strike-out, summary judgment, and a declaration that the claim was a statutory SLAPP. Our previous update provides a detailed analysis of the claims and the decision handed down by Mrs Justice Collins Rice.
Ultimately, the claims were disposed of under the ordinary strike-out and summary judgment jurisdictions, so the decision only goes so far in demonstrating how the statutory regime will apply in practice. Mrs Justice Collins Rice did however conclude that the claim was a statutory “SLAPP claim” under ECCTA, and the judgment therefore provides useful guidance on the assessment of a claimant’s conduct under section 195. In particular:
- Procedural errors, defective pleadings, or other litigation failures will not, without more, amount to improper conduct by a claimant in litigation and/or result in a claim being designated a statutory “SLAPP claim” under section 195.
- The threshold under section 195 requires conduct beyond that expected in the ordinary course of litigation, such as, an unwarranted degree of aggressive or improper pressure.
- On the facts, Mrs Justice Collins Rice considered Mr Kamal’s conduct met that higher threshold because:
- he made an ostensibly on-notice injunction application without putting the defendants on notice, suggesting this was deliberate rather than merely incompetent;
- he sought £8m in damages based on a contract entitlement that proved far lower when disclosed, such that the amount claimed was “spectacularly inflated” and would have been “greater than any award of libel damages ever awarded in the UK”; and
- he used formal litigation procedures to try to compel disclosure of journalistic sources.
This illustrates that where a claimant’s conduct goes beyond the ordinary incidents of litigation, for example, through a substantially inflated damages claim or the improper use of court procedures to exert pressure, it may support a finding that the claim amounts to a statutory “SLAPP claim”.
The other point worth noting is that early disposal of a claim does not necessarily mean quick or inexpensive disposal. The defendants in this case incurred approximately £146,000 in legal costs over the course of six months prior to it being dismissed. The defendants ultimately recovered those costs on an indemnity basis, but still, significant expenditure was required to achieve that result. This demonstrates the practical and financial burden that the disposal of SLAPP claims may still impose.
Growing momentum to expand the statutory SLAPPs regime
A Private Member’s Bill aimed at addressing SLAPPs beyond economic crime was introduced in December 2023 by Wayne David MP, but it fell when the parliamentary session ended in summer 2024 and was not reintroduced.
That has not brought the debate around further reform to an end though. On 16 June 2026, Baroness Stowell of Beeston introduced a new SLAPP Bill in the House of Lords, and the following day, a Bill was introduced in the House of Commons with the same title by Sir John Whittingdale MP. The text of the Lords Bill (HL Bill 29) has been published, but, at the time of writing, the Commons Bill has not. The UK Anti-SLAPP Coalition has stated in a press release that the Commons Bill establishes a similar procedure to that in the Lords Bill.
Focusing on the detail of the Lords Bill, if enacted in its present form, the Bill would repeal sections 194 and 195 ECCTA and replace the economic-crime-specific regime with a more general procedure by which defendants could apply for early determination of claims relating to freedom of expression on matters of public interest. A claim would be stayed pending the resolution of an application for early determination and would only be designated a “SLAPP claim” if it is dismissed under procedure.
The starting point would be materially different than under ECCTA. It would not be necessary to show that a claimant was acting with an improper or strategic intention in their conduct of the claim. Instead, the defendant must simply show that the claim relates to an exercise of freedom of expression on a matter of public interest. This significantly broadens the opportunity to seek to have a claim dismissed as a SLAPP. The court may then dismiss a claim if the claimant fails to show that it is more likely than not that the claim would succeed at trial, which is the same test applied under ECCTA. This is a significant hurdle for a claimant to overcome and there is no requirement on the defendant to show improper intent on the part of the claimant.
The Lords Bill does proposes some sort of safeguard for claimants however: the court must not dismiss the claim if, in all the circumstances, the harm suffered or likely to be suffered as a result of the defendant’s expression is sufficiently serious that the public interest in permitting the claim to continue outweighs the public interest in dismissing it before trial. This would involve the court weighing up the competing interests of both parties which introduces a new evidential complexity into the assessment.
There are also costs provisions proposed under the Bill which are asymmetric and generally aimed at offering the defendant costs protection, including powers to order security for costs and a measure similar to that under ECCTA which provides that a claimant will not generally recover their costs of application for early determination even if unsuccessful.
The Lords Bill would significantly broaden SLAPPs protections by shifting the gateway away from the claimant’s motive and towards the subject matter of the claim. That means even claims brought in good faith could face early determination where they concern expression on a matter of public interest. There is also a significant risk that determining whether a claim is more likely than not to succeed at trial will require a detailed examination of its merits. However, the practical impact of the proposal will turn heavily on the procedural detail which the Bill leaves to the Civil Procedure Rules, including the timing of early-determination applications and the evidence which may be deployed. Those matters will be critical to whether the procedure is capable of offering a proportionate route to early disposal, or instead is too broad, evidence-heavy and cumbersome to operate efficiently.
Risk of an approach driven by political and media pressure
Against the backdrop of heightened public and political scrutiny of SLAPPs, the Solicitors Regulation Authority (the “SRA”) issued a Warning Notice in November 2022 reminding solicitors that they must not intimidate, mislead or misuse legal correspondence to inhibit lawful reporting. It later brought regulatory proceedings against a number of practitioners, including Mr Ashley Hurst and Ms Claire Gill, alleging that correspondence sent by them on behalf of their clients amounted to SLAPPs and/or breached professional obligations. Although those proceedings did not concern the application of the statutory SLAPPs regime, they illustrate the risks of allowing an anti-SLAPP narrative to override well-established legal principles and effective regulation.
In Hurst, the High Court overturned the decision of the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (“SDT”) which found that although Mr Hurst’s correspondence did not amount to a SLAPP, he had breached his regulatory duties by attempting to prevent the recipient, Mr Neidle from publishing an email by marking it “Confidential and Without Prejudice”. The SDT had fined Mr Hurst £50,000 and ordered him to pay the SRA’s costs of £260,000. The High Court disagreed entirely; it was clear that the email had a properly arguable basis for both without prejudice protection and confidentiality and criticised the SDT for allowing what it described as a “SLAPP-infused narrative” to displace the specific legal and regulatory questions before it. Our previous update provides a full analysis of the decision. CMS Cameron McKenna Nabarro Olswang LLP acted for Mr Hurst.
In Gill, the SDT dismissed the SRA’s allegation that a threatened defamation claim sent by Ms Gill on behalf of OneCoin, the cryptocurrency business, was an improper threat of litigation. It emphasised that a solicitor’s conduct must be assessed by reference to what was known at the time, not with hindsight. The contemporaneous documents showed that Ms Gill was continuing to investigate the position, had sought further information from her client and had no reason at that stage to know that instructions were false. The critical dividing line was that a solicitor must not knowingly advance false instructions or assist an abuse of process, but they are not required to reject a client’s case merely because doubts exist about its merits or truth. The SRA appealed, but the appeal was dismissed by consent in July 2026 and the SDT’s dismissal therefore stands. The SRA also agreed to pay Ms Gill’s costs of the appeal in the sum of £85,794.
The rule of law and access to justice require solicitors to be able to advance properly arguable claims and defences on behalf of their clients whilst solicitors’ obligations as officers of the court ensure that they do not mislead or use court procedures abusively. As Iain Miller and Colin Passmore argue in their Law Gazette article, “SLAPPs: regulator’s campaign is in disarray - it must reset”, over-prosecution in this context risks inhibiting access to justice by restricting clients’ ability to assert rights through solicitors, and “[t]he SRA’s recent approach to SLAPPs appears overly driven by an expedient response to political and media pressure rather than a worked-through analysis of where the boundary lies between legitimately advancing a client’s interests on the one hand and abusive litigation on the other”. This reinforces the need for any response to SLAPPs, whether regulatory or statutory, to be measured, evidence-based and consistent with the rule of law and access to justice.
What next?
For now, the statutory SLAPP regime remains confined in scope, applying only to claims concerning economic crime. Though Kamal is an important first indication of the court’s approach, further judicial consideration is needed before conclusions can be drawn as to the impact of the ECCTA framework in practice.
Whilst there is a case for SLAPPs protections to extend beyond economic crime, the broader framework proposed in the Lords Bill would mark a significant shift in approach and is likely to present practical challenges. If the gateway for dismissing a claim as a SLAPP is too broad, or the procedure becomes too complex and evidence-heavy, there is a real risk that mechanisms designed to reduce vexatious litigation instead increase the burden on the courts and create satellite disputes, delay and increased costs. There are concerns that this has the potential to materially impact a claimant’s ability to access justice, particularly when coupled with the costs protections which the Lords Bill proposes in favour of defendants.
Both the Lords and Commons Bills remain at an early parliamentary stage. The Lords Bill is awaiting its second reading, with no date yet announced. The Commons Bill is currently scheduled for its second reading on 27 November 2026. A House of Commons debate did however take place on 1 September 2026 which saw MPs criticise the limited scope of the anti-SLAPP provisions under ECCTA and confirm support for a broader framework. The debate acknowledged the need for future legislation to better tackle abusive litigation, such as through a broader statutory definition of SLAPPs, an early-dismissal mechanism and/or additional cost protections, while preserving access to justice for genuinely meritorious defamation and privacy claims. The debate reflects an emerging cross-party consensus that further legislative intervention is required.
The key though is that further reform should not be driven by political or media pressure, but by the need for a careful thought-through and proportionate protections against SLAPPs that are workable in practice. The recent regulatory decisions underline why that matters. They demonstrate the risks that an over-expansive anti-SLAPP agenda can present to the rule of law and access to justice. As commentators have observed, the SRA’s strategy requires a reset and the lesson to be learnt are relevant not only to effective regulation but also to the debate around any extension to the statutory SLAPPs regime.
