The legislation authorizes the government to reimburse insurance companies for damages, settlements and legal expenses incurred in lawsuits related to their work as Medicare contractors.
Certainly Twitter will be at the forefront of libel litigation in the future, regardless of any of the changes proposed in the Defamation Bill and the outcome of any legal action taken by Lord McAlpine against high profile tweeters is likely to have an even more profound impact on the legal landscape than his six figure damages settlements with the BBC and ITV.
She defended News International's strategy to agree confidential damages settlements with people alleging hacking, saying that it would lower the company's financial liabilities.
As of Friday, more than 160,000 claims had been submitted under the Deepwater Horizon Economic and Property Damages Settlement, according to the settlement Web site, and a total of $1.87 billion of payments had been made on 27,488 claims.
In addition to a £185,000 libel damages settlement and high court apology, Newsnight's inaccurate McAlpine report on 2 November last year has been the subject of a highly critical internal BBC inquiry.
Gustav Aniansson, the cosmetic surgeon who carried out the liposuction procedure, voluntarily applied to be removed from the General Medical Council's register, and lawyers for the couple later secured a £300,000 damages settlement in November 2006.
The £1.5m damages settlement, which must be paid in 14 days, will be a relief for the SFO, which has seen its reputation battered after its investigation into the Tchenguiz brothers, then its biggest fraud inquiry, collapsed in disarray.
Mr Crone said the crucial 'for Neville' email was held up in front of Mr Murdoch at a meeting on 10 June 2008, and may have been passed across a table to him when he authorised a record confidential damages settlement with Gordon Taylor, chief executive of the Professional Footballers Associationn, in June 2008.
The Conservative peer had already received a substantial damages settlement from the BBC over a Newsnight report falsely suggesting he was a paedophile.
15 July: British expat Robert Murat accepts a £600,000 damages settlement over allegations in 11 UK newspapers that he was involved in Madeleine's disappearance.
The final claim filing deadline for the court-supervised Economic and Property Damages Settlement program for compensation of damages induced by the oil spill has just passed in June this year.
