A Chief Executive Officer of a one-time leading real estate company in Lagos is currently struggling to pay salaries and sustain the company because some hired bloggers constantly made false, defamatory and disparaging posts about the company and they were able to ground the company down. Some of the publications claimed that the CEO of the company is a fraudster, while some claim that the company is a Ponzi scheme, while some post stated that the company is used for money laundering activities by politicians and internet fraudsters.
Trade Libel — a standard peril covered under a media professional liability policy. Trade libel is also known as “product disparagement” and occurs when a product manufacturer makes untrue remarks about a competitor’s product (source: IRMI)
We have seen this happen constantly when a blossoming business is successfully kicked out of the market by a competitor or through sheer hatred of bloggers and publishers who write and publish defamatory things about the business.
Instagram, Twitter and other social media platforms are flooded with posts of people saying damaging words about the services of a certain service provider or about a product; if that statement or publication is false about the product or services of a company, it becomes a tort known as “trade libel” which is actionable in l court. Some of these things are done in the name of catching cruise or chasing clouts while some of them are sponsored by competitors who want to take over and control the market.
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It is tortious and actionable in the law court for you to go online and make disparaging or defamatory publications about the services of a service provider or the products of a company.
If you as a customer have had a one-time bad experience with a business, that does not grant you the right to come online or make a post saying defamatory or publish disparaging things that will make that business lose customers and drive down their sales. The business owners can institute an action against you in tort for what is called trade libel.
Trade libel, therefore, is the publication of a false statement of fact that is an intentional disparagement of the quality of the services or products of the plaintiff’s business and that results in pecuniary damages to the business owner.
The elements or ingredients of a trade libel; ie things that must occur before it can be said that a trade libel has taken place;
- A person made a false disparaging and defamatory statement about the quality of your product or the quality of the services you render
- The statement was published either in the print media or social media
- Your business suffered a loss; loss of money, drop in sales or loss of customers as a result of the false publication.
Once you can successfully establish those three key elements above then you can successfully institute an action against a person for trade libel; be it a blogger, a newspaper editor or a publisher or an online clout chaser or cruise catcher.
I have seen many good businesses and good products grounded to the ground by bloggers and publishers through false and defamatory posts and articles targeted against the businesses. These business owners need to start holding these bloggers and publishers accountable and make them pay for the damages.
