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Deal reached in defamation case

Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, the founder of Easyjet, Mark Dixon, founder of Regus Group, and Tim Regan, its company secretary, have settled their differences relating to a defamation case which was due to have started in the High Court this week.

A joint statement in open court yesterday said the dispute had arisen about statements given by Mark Dixon, Tim Regan and Regus to the Financial Times in May 2008 in reply to serious allegations made against them by Sir Stelios to the newspaper for publication. Those statements in turn related to discussions that had taken place in 2007 about doing business together in the serviced offices market.

In making statements to the Financial Times (in response to a journalist who had already spoken to Sir Stelios), Regus, Tim Regan and Mark Dixon suggested that Sir Stelios's allegations were completely unfounded and appeared out of the blue. As a result Sir Stelios issued libel proceedings.

In the joint statement, Mr Dixon, Mr Regan and Regus have made it clear that they did not intend to accuse Sir Stelios of lying.

"If any such impression was given the defendants are happy to apologise. They accept that such an allegation would be untrue," the statement said. In yesterday's statement, Sir Stelios accepted for his part "that Mr Dixon, Mr Regan and Regus did not intend to accuse him of lying and acted honestly in responding to his allegations against them".

Financial Times - Jane Croft