Wissam Al Mana, a Qatari billionaire and the former husband of pop star Janet Jackson, is suing Facebook in Dublin over a series of bogus advertisements on the social media platform for cryptocurrency featuring his image.
Al Mana, one of the best-known business magnates in the Middle East, lodged a High Court injunction against Facebook in Dublin last week. The businessman, who is represented by Cork solicitors Ronan Daly Jermyn, is claiming defamation, malicious falsehood and false advertising by the cryptocurrency firm on Facebook.
The legal action filed by Al Mana, who declined to comment, centres on what he believes is a cryptocurrency scam that has been using his image without permission to promote itself in the Middle East. Al Mana is a household name in the region, where his Al Mana Group operates 55 companies across eight countries, employing more than 3,500 people. He is notoriously media-shy and rarely gives interviews.
A disclaimer was added to the official website, wissamalmana.com, in recent months stating that it is the only source of reliable information about him online. It says he operates no social media accounts and that any accounts linked to him or using his picture “should not be quoted or used as a source of accurate information”.
Born in Doha, the capital of Qatar, and worth about €1bn, Al Mana spent his formative years in London. His company has exclusive rights in the Middle East for numerous luxury brands, including Harvey Nichols, Stella McCartney, Balenciaga, Hermès, Dior Homme, Alexander McQueen and Loro Piana. He has exclusive rights to other well-known western companies in the region, including HMV, Mango, Zara and Benetton, while he owns the McDonald’s franchise for Qatar.
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Al Mana is best-known in the west for his marriage to Jackson in 2012. The couple have a son, Eissa, aged three. Jackson split from Al Mana in January 2017 just months after giving birth to the couple’s son at the age of 50. The pop star reportedly converted to Islam during their time together, which was split between the US, London and Doha. The couple divorced in London’s Royal Courts of Justice in June 2017. It was Jackson’s third marriage.
This case is the latest in a series of actions featuring tycoons from the Middle East and Africa suing Facebook in Dublin, where the social media giant has its European headquarters. Paul Tweed, a well-known defamation lawyer, set up a firm last year to specialises in these type of cases. His clients to date include Ismail Omar Guelleh, the president of Djibouti, who sued Facebook in Dublin in an effort to reveal the identity of an account holder making disparaging comments about him.
Tweed is also representing Ghanem Nuseibeh, a Qatari critic, in relation to alleged hacking of his WhatsApp account. Nuseibeh has been investigating the circumstances around Qatar’s hosting of the World Cup in 2022 and believes that is why he has been targeted.
Belfast-based Tweed said some of his clients were choosing to sue in Ireland rather than the US because of the country’s more plaintiff-friendly defamation laws. He claimed that Facebook has used the first amendment of the US constitution to “hide” from its obligations to protect its users’ reputations.
Tweed has previously represented a series of US celebrities in Irish defamation actions, including Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel, Jennifer Lopez, Nicolas Cage and Harrison Ford.
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Facebook said it does not comment on legal cases.