Newly minted political donors the Mercer family (investors in Breitbart and other internet media sites) are threatening to sue The Guardian over a series of articles concerning the families business, known associates and their money influence in both Brexit and 2016 US elections – PB/TK
Data Firm Funded By Backer Of Donald Trump And Breitbart Threatens To Sue The Guardian – By Michael Calderone / May 17 2017
Cambridge Analytica, a U.S. data analytics firm backed by Robert Mercer, and its British affiliate, SCL Elections Limited, have threatened to sue The Guardian following a series of articles investigating links between the conservative billionaire and last year’s Brexit vote to leave the European Union.
On Wednesday, The Guardian informed staff that the firms had threatened legal action and it added a disclaimer to more than a half-dozen articles and editorials, including “Robert Mercer: the big data billionaire waging war on mainstream media” and “Revealed: how US billionaire helped to back Brexit” from February and this month’s “The great British Brexit robbery: how our democracy was hijacked.”
“These articles are the subject of a legal complaint on behalf of Cambridge Analaytica LLC and SCL Elections Limited,” the disclaimer reads.
A Guardian spokesperson said the paper had no additional comment.
“Cambridge Analytica denies the allegations published by the Observer in the strongest possible terms,” a company spokesperson said in a statement to HuffPost, referring to The Guardian’s sister paper published on Sundays. “We can confirm that we are pursuing legal action in this matter; in the circumstances it would not be appropriate to comment further.”
The aforementioned articles were written by Carole Cadwalladr, who reported Sunday that two data firms tied to competing pro-Brexit Leave campaigns, Cambridge Analytica and Canada’s AggregateIQ, hadn’t disclosed a partnership, a possible violation of British election law. The firms denied such a relationship.
