http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/historian-pay
s-damages-for-fake-amazon-reviews-2028431.html
Historian pays damages for fake Amazon reviews
By Mike Dodd, Press Association
Friday, 16 July 2010
Historian and writer Orlando Figes is paying damages and costs to two
academics who launched a libel case after a row over fake reviews posted
on the Amazon online bookshop website.
The case came after a scandal in which it emerged that award-winning
Professor Figes, 50, professor of history at Birkbeck College,
University of London, had posted critical reviews of books by a number
of authors, including fellow historians Dr Rachel Polonsky and Professor
Robert Service, on the Amazon site.
Initially, Prof Figes' wife, Stephanie Palmer, a law lecturer at
Cambridge University and barrister at the human rights specialists
Blackstone Chambers, shouldered the blame for the reviews.
It then emerged that Prof Figes wrote them himself, using the pseudonyms
"Historian" and "Orlando-Birkbeck".
But by then Prof Figes, who has been on sick leave from Birkbeck College
since the scandal broke, had issued a string of legal threats to
academic colleagues, literary journals and newspapers which suggested he
might have written the reviews posted on Amazon.co.uk.
His then lawyer also initially denied that he was the author and
threatened legal action.
Dr Polonsky, author of a book on Russian history, and Prof Service, of
Oxford University, then launched their legal action.
As part of the settlement agreed today, Prof Figes has circulated an
apology and retraction in which he accepts that his denial of
responsibility for the reviews was false.
He also withdrew any adverse imputations that an email he sent had
conveyed against Dr Polonsky and Prof Service, and apologised for
instructing his previous solicitor to write to Prof Service threatening
libel proceedings for suggesting that he had written the reviews.
Prof Figes and his wife also agreed to pay Dr Polonsky and Prof Service
damages, and their legal costs, partly on the indemnity basis - the
highest rate.
He also gave an undertaking not to repeat the allegations, not to post
pseudonymous reviews of their works, and not to use fraud, subterfuge or
unlawful means to attack or damage them in their professional capacity.
Prof Figes admitted in a statement on April 23 that he had written the
bad reviews.
Dr Polonsky's book, Molotov's Magic Lantern, was described as "dense"
and "pretentious", with the reviewer adding that it was "the sort of
book that makes you wonder why it was ever published".
Prof Service's book, Comrades, was panned as being "awful".
In his April statement Prof Figes apologised for the distress he caused
Dr Polonsky and Prof Service, and to his lawyer for having given him
incorrect information.
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