-
Chris Cairns and Lalit Modi at the High Court in London. - Source: Getty -
Related
Chris Cairns is set to receive $180,000 in damages after England's Lord Chief Justice rejected an appeal from Indian businessman Lalit Modi today.
Cairns, 42, successfully sued the ex-chairman of Twenty20 franchise the Indian Premier League (IPL) at the High Court in London earlier this year.
The lawsuit became Britain's first ever Twitter libel trial.
Lord Chief Justice and two others upheld the damages amount, ruling that it was right to consider the percolation process, by which a tweet sent initially to less than a hundred people would have gone viral and spread around the world.
In the judgment, the Court of Appeal stated the award was "proportionate to the seriousness of the allegation and its direct impact on Cairns himself and will serve to vindicate his reputation".
In response, Cairns said today: "Nearly 3 years ago Lalit Modi made baseless and outrageous allegations against me as a professional sportsman.
"He declined to withdraw them. I was fully vindicated at trial in March this year. Modi's appeal, just like his case, was doomed to fail."
In March, High Court Judge Justice David Bean ruled that Modi had "singularly failed to provide any reliable evidence that Cairns was involved in match-fixing or spot fixing".
Bean said that Modi's lawyers had launched a "sustained and aggressive" attack on Cairns, with the words "liar", "lie" and "lies" used 24 times.
To reflect that, he increased the damages from around $147,000 to $180,000.
Cairns' solicitor told ONE News in London that he now considered all appeal rights had been exhausted by Modi and he would release the 90,000 pounds which the Indian businessman had paid into a trust account at the firm.
Modi has not yet responded to approaches from ONE News for comment.
In 2007 and 2008, Cairns captained the Chandigarh Lions in three competitions in the Indian Cricket League (ICL), which flourished briefly before the ascendancy of the IPL.
Cairns is now based in Canberra.