Tesco is seeking a front-page apology from the Guardian in the latest twist to the libel row between the supermarket chain and the paper.
The demand comes in a seven-page letter from Tesco’s solicitors, Carter Ruck, complaining about the Guardian’s treatment of the case earlier this month, The Telegraph reports.
The supermarket chain launched a action for libel and malicious falsehood against the Guardian and its editor, Alan Rusbridger, last month over a story about the firm’s tax practices. On 3 May, the Guardian acknowledged some errors in its initial reports with a double-page spread of further reporting, an online story disclosing the newspaper’s own tax arrangements, a leading article and a short item in its “Corrections and Clarifications” column.
“The one paragraph ‘correction and clarification’ [is] utterly eclipsed by the surrounding articles, including the disgracefully self-serving and misleading editorial on the same page,” the Telegraph reports Carter Ruck’s letter as saying.
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The Guardian, which has said it is “bewildered” by the Tesco case responded expressing surprise that Tesco would “treat a legal letter like a press release”. The paper’s formal reply in the case is due on Friday.
Guardian Media Group chief executive Carolyn McCall resigned from Tesco’s board over the dispute.
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