WHEN he died in 1991, the media magnate Robert Maxwell, most famed for his public spats with Rupert Murdoch when he owned the Daily Mirror and Murdoch The Sun, was found to have illegally removed roughly £500m from pension funds controlled by him. That was the initial estimate.

By the time investigators had combed through his entire business transactions, they found there was a roughly £900m hole in funds.

The implications for workers at the time were immense, and it took a combination of banks, subsequent Mirror profits and the government stepping in to fill that gaping gap where the pension monies used to be.

What was odd was that there were numerous suspicions about his dodgy business practices circulating both in the media and in the boardrooms, but no one did anything.

Brian Feeney: Why one Irish granny now beats eight years of paying taxes

Patrick Murphy: Irish unity, but at what price?

They were all way too scared to take him on.

How did Maxwell do that?

He used legal action to suppress all criticism.

I recall an interview with David English, the then editor of the Daily Mail, saying that they reached the stage where they all but gave up on coverage of Maxwell because even the most innocuous comment frequently resulted in legal actions which were both massively expensive and massively time consuming.

Last week New York Times journalist Maggie Haberman exposed the fact that US President Donald Trump is very fond of using the same tactic, albeit for primarily political reasons.........

© The Irish News