The High Court has rejected an application by retired MMA fighter Artem Lobov for orders requiring Conor McGregor to take down allegedly defamatory social media posts.
In his action Mr Lobov claimed he had been the subject of a barrage of harassing, intimidating and defamatory posts by Mr McGregor on his Twitter account.
He claimed the most damaging post about his was where he was referred to in a song sung by Mr McGregor as a "rat".
Other posts called him a turn coat and a little blouse and superimposed his image on a pack of sausages.
Mr Lobov said he believed the posts were related to a separate legal row between the two men over the sale of a whiskey brand.
However, in a judgment this morning, Mr Justice Garrett Simons said Mr Lobov's case lacked context.
Used in isolation he said the word "rat" was no more than a term of vulgar abuse. He said there must be something in the words communicating an undermining of the reputation of a prospective plaintiff.
Mr Justice Simons said Mr Lobov had not set out his case in a statement of claim or sworn an affidavit. He said an explanation that he was in Spain, was not a good reason. He said Mr Lobov had threatened to bring the action four weeks ago and should have been able to swear an affidavit in that time.
He said the letter sent by Mr Lobov did not reference any external facts affecting the meaning of the tweet.
The judge said Mr Lobov had not claimed that anyone reading the tweet would be aware of the contractual dispute between the two men or that someone reading it would understand it as meaning that Mr Lobov had betrayed Mr McGregor by beginning legal proceedings against him over that dispute.
He said Mr Lobov was suggesting that the word "rat" meant he was an informer, a person who double crosses or a person who reveals confidential information.
The judge said the word "rat" was merely one of a series of pejorative terms applied to Mr Lobov by Mr McGregor, and it was not even the most insulting.
He said Mr Lobov had not persuaded him that any of the tweets he was complaining about were clearly defamatory.
The judge said it was more likely they would be regarded as "a rant, a tirade of vulgar abuse" by an MMA fighter with a reputation for what had been described as "trash talking".
The judge said no reasonable member of society would attach any significance to the tweets and there was no reasonable basis for concern that they would injure Mr Lobov's reputation in the eyes of reasonable members of society.
He said an alleged breach of Twitter’s rules about abuse could not provide a basis for the High Court to grant an injunction in a case to which Twitter was not a party.
The judge said his provisional view was that Mr McGregor was entitled to his costs and he would deal with that matter on 11 January.
