Short answers, pulled from the story.
President Barack Obama signed the SPEECH Act into law on the 10th of August 2010. The bill passed through the 111th United States Congress without opposition and received unanimous votes from both the House of Representatives and the Senate.
The SPEECH Act was created as a response to the libel lawsuit filed by Khalid bin Mahfouz against Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld over her book Funding Evil published in 2003. Ehrenfeld refused to appear in the UK proceedings because she believed British defamation laws unfairly restricted American speech rights.
U.S. courts cannot enforce any foreign libel judgment unless the foreign jurisdiction offers free speech protections at least equal to those found in the First Amendment. Enforcement is also allowed if the defendant would have been found liable under U.S. law anyway while respecting due process guarantees.
Trout Point Lodge v. Doug K. Handshoe marked the first appellate level ruling issued under the SPEECH Act legislation. In 2013, the trial court awarded Handshoe $48,000 in legal fees pursuant to the fee-shifting provision after a Nova Scotia judgment was declared unrecognizable and unenforceable in the United States.
Academic critics argue the act fails to distinguish between legitimate forum selection and illegitimate forum shopping. Nicole Manzo wrote that exceptions to non-enforcement are illusory and an article in the Journal of International & Comparative Law described the law as overly broad and in need of reform.