British Chiropractic Association v Simon Singh

Badly Shaved Monkey said:
If the BCA drop the action now, does Simon have to sue separately for his costs?
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I think that is difficult question certainly one I can't answer. I think however it is two questions.

1) Can the BCA drop the action?

As you move up the courts I am sure the applicant and respondent swap around. So it is now Simon asking the court of Appeal for a ruling rather than the BCA and I think it is only him that can drop the Court of appeal case. However I understand that the High court case has not been properly heard yet. Eady only gave a preliminary ruling on meaning. So perhaps the BCA can drop the case.

2) Costs



I am sure Jack of Kent will enlighten us all, as usual, in his blog when he gets a chance.
 
Thanks, Lothian.

Does anyone know what the BCA's assets are? Simon clearly has 6-figure sums at his disposal, though obviously he'd rather not lose that much, but I suspect a members club like the BCA doesn't have very much. Could this break them?
 
Ah, good old Companies House.

At the end of Dec 2007 they had net assets of £838,000, including a freehold property valued at £425,000.

Well worth the £1 it cost me to find that out.
 
Badly Shaved Monkey said:
Does anyone know what the BCA's assets are? Simon clearly has 6-figure sums at his disposal, though obviously he'd rather not lose that much, but I suspect a members club like the BCA doesn't have very much. Could this break them?
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Some more info here:
The BCA has 1,029 members (including 6 abroad). (The GCC have 3,110, so the BCA don’t represent half the GCC members as was claimed yesterday.) I can’t find their fees mentioned on their website, but let’s take a guess at £100 per annum, although this does seem very high – perhaps £50 is nearer the mark. Anyway, this gives them an annual income from fees of £100,000. It doesn’t look likely that they have any other significant source of income (a check on their Companies House records would confirm this – I’ve just bought them, so I’ll look through them and let you know). They were awarded costs of £23,000 (plus VAT) yesterday, which is what their lawyers would have charged them. I they had taken on the Guardian as well, this could have been significantly more! Could they really have afforded to risk half their annual income on this?

OK. Their income from subscriptions in 2007 (FY to 31 December) was £1.65 million. Their membership certainly seems to be 1,029, making their average subscription £1,600. Does this seem right? Even providing ‘professional insurance’ and whatever else they provide, this seems steep, particularly bearing in mind every quack still has to register with the GCC. Can anyone compare that with other similar (!) organisations?

Their total income in 2007 was just under £1.9 million (so the vast majority comes from subscriptions), their expenditure just over £1.7 million, giving a surplus for the year of £112,000. They had £695,360 in the bank.

Some other figures:

They have 9 employees, earning an mean salary of £17,000.

They forked out £745,992 for ‘Professional insurance’.

They paid £105,000 for ‘Public relations expenses’.

£78,437 for ‘honoraria’. To whom is not specified.

They paid out £10,924 in unspecified ‘donations’.

£150,000 for membership of other organisations.£7,189 for ‘X-rays’! (Perhaps they x-ray their staff every year to ensure they are all healthy?)

£50,000 on ‘Research’. (Not much really, but they spent zilch the previous year.)

£19,826 on ‘Legal and professional’.

So, their lawyer’s bill, if Simon hadn’t had to pay it would have more than doubled their legal bill, but, considering their total reserves of just short of £1 million, they are well placed to fight several Simon Singhs!

They still haven’t filed their 2008 accounts (to 31 December), so we don’t know if anything has changed significantly since 2007.


http://www.zenosblog.com/2009/05/who-are-the-british-chiropractic-association/
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More updates -

BCA notes decision of Lord Justice Laws in granting Simon Singh leave to appeal
http://www.chiropractic-uk.co.uk/default.aspx?m=1&mi=1

Post-hearing chat with Simon Singh this morning (7 mins)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gti0dzoyCFs


Initial blog coverage -

Science, Reason and Critical Thinking: Simon Singh has won permission for a FULL APPEAL
http://crispian-jago.blogspot.com/2009/10/simon-singh-has-won-permission-for-full.html

Dr Aust’s Spleen: Stop Press – Simon Singh granted leave to appeal
http://draust.wordpress.com/2009/10/14/stop-press-simon-singh-granted-leave-to-appeal/

PodBlack Cat: Breaking News About Simon Singh Court Case!
http://podblack.com/2009/10/breaking-news-about-simon-singh-court-case/

New Statesman: A defence of scientific inquiry
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/fourth-estate/2009/10/simon-singh-libel-case

Nature.com: Simon Singh vs the British Chiropractic Association, redux - October 14, 2009
http://blogs.nature.com/news/thegreatbeyond/2009/10/simon_singh_vs_the_british_chi.html

The Sceptic's Book of Pooh-Pooh (Australia)
http://scepticsbook.com/2009/10/14/simon-singh-wins-right-to-full-appeal/

Lay Science: Simon Singh wins the right to a full appeal
http://www.layscience.net/node/690

Jack of Kent's blog post coming soon...
 
Blue Wode said:
Some more info here:
Their income from subscriptions in 2007 (FY to 31 December) was £1.65 million. Their membership certainly seems to be 1,029, making their average subscription £1,600. Does this seem right? Even providing ‘professional insurance’ and whatever else they provide, this seems steep, particularly bearing in mind every quack still has to register with the GCC. Can anyone compare that with other similar (!) organisations?
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My guess is that membership does include insurance, so they buy cover en bloc and sell it on to members. Hence the high membership fee, and the big chunk paid to insurers. I can't confirm this from their website though. My professional indemnity insurance as a freelance clinical research consultant is £700 pa, ie possibly about half a BCA subscription, so it's in the right ball park.

What matters is how much they have in the bank, and losing would make a dent in that. They might have to stage a whip-round from members.
 
I am delighted to report back to everyone at JREF that Simon Singh had a significant court victory today.

He has won - on his THIRD attempt - permission to appeal the highly adverse ruling on what he meant in his original article.

There will now be a full Court of Appeal hearing in about six months where Simon will be allowed to re-argue not only what facts he has to "justify" but also whether it was actually only comment (whicj under English libel law, needs only to be fair).

I have blogged here: http://jackofkent.blogspot.com/2009/10/permission-granted.html

Best wishes
Jack of Kent
 
From the BCA's statement:
It looks forward to the opportunity of presenting its case where the issues can be heard and the BCA's position can be made clear.
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Personally I'd have thought taking the opportunity of reply offered by the Guardian would have been quicker and easier, but there you go.
 
Lifted from the blog of former UK chiropractor, Richard Lanigan:
Was the president of the British Chiropractic Association, Richard Brown, being premature in supporting Simon Singh's view of chiropractic?

Wednesday, October 14 2009 - BCA

In the latest issue of the BCA members magazine Contact Richard Brown seems to be agreeing with Simon Singh no doubt thinking victory was theirs, he sends out a peace offering to Simon as if to say, we agreed with you all the time, no hard feelings. Richard Brown states:

“...for the BCA to maintain credibility as a professional organisation it must examine itself closely and determine its future direction. The BCA can no longer condone those who employ dubious practice methods and seek to portray chiropractic as a profession dedicated to upholding the fundamentalist principles of its founder. To be regarded as a progressive association, the BCA should adopt a vision, articulate values and promote an identity that will protect its members interests, encourage best practice and command respect from those whose opinions health policy and practise both on the national and international stage.”​

That sounds very similar to what Simon Singh was saying, at least Richard did not call chiropractic bogus. In the light of Simon Singh being granted leave to appeal justice Eadys ruling, I can see the BCA recalling the latest issue of Contact which they wont want showing up in the courtroom “The BCA An agenda for change”.

http://chiropracticlive.com/chiropr...supporting-simon-singhs-view-of-chiropractic/
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Badly Shaved Monkey said:
Ah, good old Companies House.

At the end of Dec 2007 they had net assets of £838,000, including a freehold property valued at £425,000.

Well worth the £1 it cost me to find that out.
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I already did that (which Blue Wode quotes from above)...but can't wait to read their 2008 accounts, which are due at the end of this month. Could be even more interesting!
 
edd said:
From the BCA's statement:

Personally I'd have thought taking the opportunity of reply offered by the Guardian would have been quicker and easier, but there you go.
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I suppose this gives them another six months to figure out how to find the correct words so that "BCA's position can be made clear". :covereyes
 
edd said:
Personally I'd have thought taking the opportunity of reply offered by the Guardian would have been quicker and easier, but there you go.
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Baffling. Didn't they make their position clear in the BMJ, and weren't they shot to pieces by the editor and Edzard Ernst? They can make it clear any time they like, anywhere they like and the court has nothing to do with it. Unless their position is changing all the time.......
 
zeno2712 said:
I already did that (which Blue Wode quotes from above)...but can't wait to read their 2008 accounts, which are due at the end of this month. Could be even more interesting!
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Indeed. Earlier you commented on the 2007 accounts and noted
"£50,000 on ‘Research’. (Not much really, but they spent zilch the previous year.)"

The year before that they spend 6,000. By my reckoning over the three years 2005-7 they spent 1.42% of their budget on research. The BCA said in 2009.

"For this very reason, the BCA has for the last three years donated a substantial part of its budget to fund research projects"

Obviously spending 1/70 of the budget is not a substantial proportion, but that only looks at 2 of the relevant years. I am interested in the expenditure for 2008 so a proper understanding of ‘substantial’ can go into my chiropractic dictionary along with plethora.
 
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Full BCA response now online (unable to copy and paste):
http://www.chiropractic-uk.co.uk/gfx/uploads/textbox/Singh/BCAStatement 14 10 09.pdf


ETA: Now typed out:
BCA Response to Decision on Right of Appeal 14th October 2009

British Chiropractic Association (BCA) v Singh

Dr. Simon Singh has been granted permission to appeal against the decision of Mr. Justice Eady. As the Claimant is not permitted to be represented in a hearing of this nature, the Judge of the Court of Appeal, Lord Justice Laws, did not have the benefit of being able to consider all the issues, nor indeed, has he heard any argument from the BCA.

Dr. Singh has used this case as a platform to argue that science writers should be immune from the law of libel and be free to write what they please. Ever since the Eady decision of 7th May 2009 he has engaged in a high profile media campaign to assert that the BCA’s action is a restriction on the freedom of speech. It is nothing of the sort.

The BCA supports and would never seek to stifle legitimate open scientific debate. However, this action is actually a simple libel claim based on the fact that he BCA was maliciously attacked by Dr. Singh in the Guardian newspaper. When given the opportunity to retract his words and apologise, Dr. Singh refused. This claim has been brought to restore the good reputation of the BCA and that of its members.

Dr. Singh may now put his case before a full Court of Appeal. Here the BCA will, for the first time, have the opportunity to present its case. The BCA remains confident that once in possession of all the facts the presiding judges will refuse the Appeal.
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volatile said:
Woah. Bitter, angry and distorting the truth - seems like their spines are out of alignment somewhat.
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Of course they are. It is inconceivable that Justice Laws didn't have access to all the information. The issue is not one of information, it's one of interpretation. What they really mean is that they didn't have their slippery barrister in court to try to bamboozle the judge. It is entirely untrue that Simon argues that "science writers should be immune from the law of libel and be free to write what they please". This is a lie and he would be justified in suing them. Oh dear, they will probably sue me for saying it's a lie.
 
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