Victory!

Trafigura and Carter-Ruck backed down shortly before the 2pm High Court hearing and lifted the gagging order; it must have been obvious it was going to be overturned even to them. The overwhelming response from the blogosphere and Twitter must have been a very nasty surprise for them!

Kudos also to the Spectator, which was the only other media outlet to report on the story. And a big thumbs-down to the BBC and Channel 4 who refused to report on it even when directly asked. Even now that reporting restrictions have been lifted, there is NO mention of it on the BBC website. Shame on you, BBC.

It has been revealed that Trafigura were indeed trying to cover up the injunction against reporting in the British press of the Minton report, on the alleged dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast, commissioned by Trafigura. In several incidents, Trafigura dumped thousands of tons of sulphurous coker naptha mixed with caustic soda off Côte d’Ivoire in 2006, with full knowledge as detailed in internal emails that doing so would likely cause thousands of injuries and deaths. The chemical waste came from a ship called Probo Koala and in August 2006 truckload after truckload of it was illegally fly-tipped at 15 locations around Abidjan, the biggest city in Ivory Coast. This led to 16 deaths and 31000 injured.

Trafigura can now thank Carter-Ruck for having ensured that by trying to gag the British press, pretty much the whole world now knows exactly what Trafigura did.

[Edit to add] The BBC finally reported on the lifting of the gag nearly three hours afterwards with a very mealymouthed piece.