The 28 October 2000 edition of Barron's Online, published by Dow Jones, contained an article entitled "Unholy Gains" in which several references were made to the respondent, Joseph Gutnick.

The author then uses some language that the media have appropriated from the law courts, implying that a balanced trial with equal opportunity to participate by all concerned has taken place: that a "Barron's investigation found that several charities traded heavily in stocks promoted by Gutnick".

(emphasis added) The article associates the respondent with Mr Nachum Goldberg who is apparently a convicted tax evader and another person awaiting trial for stock manipulation in New York.

(per Callinan J at para 186) Equally, however, the majority of the Court (Gleeson CJ, McHugh, Gummow and Hayne JJ handing down a joint decision) stated that they disagreed that this would cause open-slather defamation actions in Australia: (at para 54 of the decision) [T]he spectre which Dow Jones sought to conjure up in the present appeal, of a publisher forced to consider every article it publishes on the World Wide Web against the defamation laws of every country from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe is seen to be unreal when it is recalled that in all except the most unusual of cases, identifying the person about whom material is to be published will readily identify the defamation law to which that person may resort.The case was highly controversial and the subject of much commentary from legal analysts.

[6] In the teeth of that application prepared by Geoffrey Robertson, Tim Robertson SC, Mark Stephens (solicitor) and Johnson Winter Slattery lawyer Paul Reidy, the case was settled on 15 November 2004, Dow Jones settled the case, agreeing to pay Gutnick some of his legal fees.