This story can be found at http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp ... =46183&c=122 October 2010
By Sarah Limbrick
James Bond film producer Barbara Broccoli has launched a legal action against Associated Newspapers in a row over a story that appeared in the Mail on Sunday.
Broccoli is suing over a story headed “Axed film quango gave £70m to own members” which appeared in August.
According to a writ filed at the High Court, the movie producer is demanding damages for libel and malicious falsehood.
She is also suing over a piece by columnist Peter McKay headed “Charity that really must start at home”.
The writ claims these stories suggested that as a board member of the UK Film Council she had improperly awarded her company First Light Movies a £1.1m grant.
Broccoli denies the claim and says she is the chair of First Light, which is a charity, and that it is not her own company.
She says her reputation has been seriously damaged by the stories, and she also suffered considerable hurt, embarrassment and distress.
Broccoli, who has instructed solicitors Reed Smith to act for her, is seeking aggravated damages, saying the paper knew the claims were false or was reckless as to whether they were true or false, and treated her contemptuously by failing to publish an apology.
She is also seeking an injunction banning the paper from repeating the allegations about her.
Here is one of the original stories that ran back in August. Honestly I don't remember her name popping out at me concerning this scandal.
http://findarticles.com/p/news-articles ... n54806336/Axed film quango gave [pounds sterling]70m to own members
Mail on Sunday (London, England), The, August 15, 2010
Byline: Glen Owen political correspondent
IT WAS a decision which had the movie world up in arms - the axeing of a quango which has ploughed [pounds sterling]160 million into the British film industry over the past decade.
Now new research could explain why they were so livid over the demise of the UK Film Council: more than [pounds sterling]70 million of its money was awarded in the form of grants to its own board members and staff.
Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt triggered outrage last month when he announced that he was shutting the council, which handed out [pounds sterling]15 million a year in lottery grants to the domestic movie industry.
More than 50 actors and actresses, including Emily Blunt, Bill Nighy and James McAvoy, wrote to a newspaper to complain, while Clint Eastwood told Chancellor George Osborne that losing such a 'valuable resource' had caused him 'great concern'.
But an analysis by The Mail on Sunday of the council's accounts has revealed that nearly half of the money went to so-called 'related parties' - film-makers who were members of the council's staff or on its board of directors. Between 2000 and 2010, a total of 89 Film Council grants were made to companies which employed, or were run by, its own staff.
These included Duncan Kenworthy, the producer of Four Weddings And A Funeral and Notting Hill, who in 2001/2002 received a total of [pounds sterling]8.6 million in grants for DNA Films, the company he co-founded. At the time, Mr Kenworthy was on the Council's board of directors.
Chris Auty, the producer of movies such as Stealing Beauty, Crash and Bright Young Things, was a founder board member of the Council.
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