A British judge ordered the Journal and David Enrich, the newspaper's European banking editor, to comply with a request by the U.K.'s Serious Fraud Office prohibiting the newspaper from publishing names of individuals not yet made public in the government's ongoing investigation into alleged manipulation of the London interbank offered rate, or Libor.
The order, which applies to publication in England and Wales, also demanded that the Journal remove "any existing Internet publication" divulging the details. It threatened Mr. Enrich and "any third party" with penalties including a fine, imprisonment and asset seizure.
The Journal received word of the order from the SFO by email at 7:18 p.m. London time. The news organization already had published on Dow Jones Newswires and the Journal's website, WSJ.com, an article by Mr. Enrich and reporter Jenny Strasburg that divulged names of traders and brokers that British prosecutors expect to publicly name next week. The article was taken down from the website but appears in Friday's print editions of the Journal circulated in the U.S. and in Asia.
The article said the government was preparing to name roughly two dozen traders and brokers, adding that prosecutors were still finalizing their plans and that the list could change, citing people familiar with the process. Inclusion on the list doesn't represent a formal accusation of wrongdoing and doesn't mean the individuals will be charged with crimes.
"This injunction is a serious affront to press freedom," said Dow Jones & Co., publisher of the Journal. "We have been left with no choice but to remove the previously published story from WSJ.com and to withhold publication from the print edition of The Wall Street Journal Europe. However, we will continue to vigorously fight the injunction in the coming days."
Dow Jones is a unit of News Corp. NWSA +0.09%
Under U.K. law—which seeks to balance freedom of the press with personal privacy and the integrity of the judicial process—it isn't unusual for the courts to impose reporting restrictions on the media to prevent them from reporting details that prosecutors believe could jeopardize an investigation or case.
Even celebrities can obtain court orders to prevent the reporting about embarrassing revelations about their personal lives. In some instances, the orders are granted in an anonymous form so the media can't reveal the identity of the people who obtained them.
The situation in Britain marks a contrast to the U.S. In the U.S., court orders preventing media from reporting something are exceedingly rare, and typically would be considered only in exceptional circumstances involving, for example, threats to national security. Some other European countries have even stronger privacy protection laws than the U.K.
A spokeswoman for the Serious Fraud Office declined to comment on the court order.
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