Legal commentator Richard Ackland described the case as "probably the biggest piece of civil litigation NSW has seen for many years... without doubt the largest, longest and most comprehensive defamation case in the history of Australia. And probably one of the biggest in the history of the common law world." In 2002, the New South Wales Court of Appeal ruled that the compensation payout should have included consideration for hurt feelings, and ordered a new trial on damages. Marsden and Seven subsequently came to a confidential out-of-court settlement, estimated by various parties as somewhere between A$6 million and A$9 million.