Italian Newspaper Threatened Over Coverage of UN Food Agency
Legal disputes and institutional tensions erupt over controversial media stories.
ROME — A small but influential English-language news site in Rome has been exposing corruption at a United Nations agency based there.
And the Italian Insider has paid a high price: It now needs to raise up to 85,000 euros to pay a legal settlement, having lost all its appeals.
Although still publishing, the fear is it may go out of business. (In his current GoFundMe page, Phillips continues to raise money to pay his legal fees.)
The initial lawsuit brought by the UN Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO) was designed to bankrupt and silence a British-born journalist at the Italian Insider, the only English-language newspaper in the country owned by John Phil lips and other shareholders.
Italian Insider Editor John Phillips holding a newspaper of his publication. Phillips was charged for defamation of the UN FAO by an Italian court. (COURTESY/JOHN PHILLIPS)
The main case was brought by then FAO Director General Jose Graziano da Silva and four of his executives in 2017 claiming that Phillips damaged their reputation and that of the FAO. The trial began in the Rome Tribunal in 2018.Subsequently, in a separate case adding to Phillips’ woes Bocconi University lecturer Vincenzo Morabito also sued Phillips for writing about his alleged links toorganizedd crime. Phillips has lodged an appeal against a first instance conviction for allegedly defaming Bocconi, who was a convicted criminal in his youth.
Phillips has repeatedly denied allegations of libel. The FAO had accused him of defamation and publishing false stories.
Reporters Without Borders publicly condemned the lawsuits as ÔÇ£vexatious cases.ÔÇØ
An Italian tribunal found Phillips liable for defamation in his reporting of the FAO, alleging corruption and nepotism at the agency. Accusations included fraudulent consulting contracts and rigging procurement systems.
The publication’s FAO stories also included accounts from insiders and whistleblowers detailing suspicious activity and reports of sexual harassment in other FAO offices, mainly in the Middle East, according to PhillipsÔÇÖ sources.
Phillips also claimed da Silva was anti-Western, unfriendly to donors of the FAO. Da Silva had previously served in the Lulu da Silva administration in the 2000s as an Extraordinary Ministry for Food Security.
ÔÇ£The FAO brings money to Rome,ÔÇØ said Phillips about his reporting. ÔÇ£They want to protect the relationship among the Italian state, the Italian government, the Italian establishment, and the UN because the FAO is a good thing.ÔÇØ
The FAO was in a leadership transition when Phillips published his investigative stories. Da SilvaÔÇÖs term as head of the UN FAO ended in July 2019.
A brief history: in 2018 the Rome Tribunal ordered Phillips to pay some 85,000 euros to the FAO and its four executives for legal costs and advance civil damages. He was fined just 1,000 euros for the alleged libel.
The FAO has not had it all its own way in its attempts to silence Phillips. The FAO lawyers also tried to bring another case claiming that we were a clandestine publication, but a judge threw out the case when we proved we were officially registered as a newspaper in Italy,” said Phillips. “An earlier attempt by an FAO executive asking authorities to close down our digital newspaper was also thrown out because Italy’s supreme court ruled that news sites cannot be closed down, or it would be a violation of press freedom.”
Italian law criminalizes journalists for libel and defamation under Article 595 of the Italian criminal code.
The case went on for years.
In theory Phillips could have been sentenced to a prison sentence under Italy’s antiquated criminal libel laws. So far he has incurred only harsh financial penalties but another FAO manager has brought yet another case against him claiming he defamed her by reporting she was promoted after sleeping with an African FAO deputy director general. In 2025, a Rome judge threw out separate criminal charges filed by another FAO executive who claimed Phillips in his articles threatened his life.
Despite legal travails, Phillips hasn’t curtailed his muckraking. The Italian Insider’s May 2026 issue accused the current FAO chief Qu Dongyu of quid pro quo hiring to his office of the daughter of the IAEA director general Rafael Grossi, the leading candidate to become the best UN Secretary General, in return for promotion of Chinese managers at the IAEA.
In May, Phillips also launched the LVIV Insider, www.lvivinsider.com, to report on Ukraine.