Lawyers: Eat My Shorts

It is a sad fact of the world that some companies and people use the legal system for intimidation purposes.

It is a sad fact of the world that those companies and individuals most likely to use the legal system to intimidate, are those more likely to be involved in unethical, or potentially illegal practices.

Nearly two years ago a company called Creditsafe Ltd threatened to sue Platinax, Britecorp, and myself personally, because their disgruntled customers came to the Platinax business forums to air grievances on the company.

They saw the comments on Platinax in Google, and threatened to file for defamation.

At the time I had just moved house and was trying to keep Britecorp above water as it changed business model, and legal action was an unwelcome distraction.

I purposefully hired expensive lawyers in Edinburgh because I wanted to ensure I had the best advice. It cost me well over a grand (GBP, not USD) for a couple of hours and letters, but I came out from the whole experience with a clearer idea of my legal position as a company and as an individual.

That’s good, because over the past few months I’ve faced two further claims of defamation - due to customer complaints posted in forums.

Here’s the problem - if you are accused of defamation, you are guilty until proven innocent. It’s a reversal of the normal legal process.

So you need to be especially vigilant that if someone does posts complaints about a company, that they keep to the facts, and avoid second-guessing company motivations. The former is within the law, the second is a fast-track to potential defamation.

In the more recent issues raised with my business, I had to accept that posts which question a company’s motivations cannot be published - unless I believe wholeheartedly that this is a fight I am personally involved with enough to chase up.

However, it also means that I am well aware of certain key issues.

Firstly, my companies are Scottish, and Scotland has its own legal jurisdiction. That means if a company were to file anything in the courts, they must do so via the Scottish courts, by hiring the services of a Scottish solicitor. This is unwelcome for lawyers whose purpose is simply to intimate, because their threats are clearly outside of their jurisdiction.

Additionally, while personal details of some of my forum members have been demanded - backed by legal threats - the Scottish legal position says that not only am I quite within my rights to resist and protect this information as confidential, but also that any company demanding this information must pay for the relevant costs of a court order themselves, without pushing those costs on. Again, this works against those lawyers used to intimidate.

The legal experience is never pleasant at first, but it is also a hardening experience, and when I now receive letters from legal representative, I am no longer intimidated, but instead move with the due process expected.

For example, a few days ago one of my writers covered a story on one of my news sites, and referred to an upcoming fraud case as a criminal one, when in fact it is a civil action. The distinction is acute, but serious.

A US lawyer who obviously represented the interests of the person in question called a few days ago to ensure this error was removed - and also suggested rewriting of the story which was clearly to his client’s favour.

I don’t want to publish inaccurate reporting, so I removed the reference to the fraud case as it wasn’t the main point to the story, but refused to spin the news story as requested.

Today I received official notification from the lawyer, demanding a correction on the item about the previous albeit brief reference to “criminal”.

At a business level, I would have thought it made more sense to see all reference to damaging fraud action removed. Perhaps they wanted to keep things that way, and wanted a warm apology for mis-stating facts about their client.

What they got was indeed a correction and apology to our readers for the error - and then detailed information on the civil fraud action being led by a US state against the individual.

I’m not entirely convinced that this is what the lawyer wanted, but they requested the facts, so this is what was delivered.

Just before Creditsafe threatened legal action, I suffered a seriously bad experience with UK retailer Comet. After the Creditsafe issue had passed, I ensure that not only would I blog about it - I would also keep the facts. I have also ensured a proper reference to this on Wikipedia.

Perhaps Comet have already considered their legal position, but I’ve already ensured I kept outside of the bounds of defamation on this, so the testament to previous bad customer service remains.

Threatening correspondence from legal representatives can feel intimidating. In many cases, that is the intention.

So long as you keep to facts, remain polite, and stubbornly refuse to be intimidated by empty threats, it rather becomes just another chore you have to deal with.

Just ensure you remain within the law and have access to good legal advice - if your budget is tight, can get free legal advice as a normal part of FSB membership (approx £100/year).

Of course, correct and remove content which raises valid concerns and deal with such lawyers in a professional manner.

For those lawyers making empty threats - they can just eat my shorts.