I've seen more than one journalist say that Man City are very quick to threaten legal action about stories.
It no doubt makes some difference, but newspapers will be threatened all the time, and will be careful when they need to be, and sail as close to the line as they can.
It would also be crazy for the club to actually launch multiple libel actions, as they could bring all the finances out into the open, and are unpredictable. Whatever we think of the likelihood that City win beat these charges, we all know that the club have had to be as creative as possible in order to break into the top tier, and even if they've not broken laws, they wouldn't actively invite scrutiny.