Online Review Defamation: Court Protection for a Business
Review platforms are the foundation of a modern business's reputation: a single rating point often directly changes revenue. A review written as defamation is therefore not merely unpleasant for a business but a real source of pecuniary damage. Georgian law builds such a dispute on two questions: whether the statement embedded in the review is factual and evidently incorrect, and whether it serves a lawful public interest. The boundary between these two questions separates criticism from defamation.
Facticity and Evident Incorrectness
The basis of the compensation claim is Article 993 of the Civil Code: a person who intentionally or negligently disseminates or publicises facts damaging to another person's property must compensate the damage arising therefrom, where these facts are evidently incorrect. In the review context this means the character of the statement is decisive: an assessment of taste, whether it was enjoyable or pleasing, is not a fact, whereas a concrete factual assertion, that there was no agreement at all, that no licence existed, that a sum was not refunded, is a fact, and its evident incorrectness generates compensation. The frame of fault is general: a person who, by an unlawful, intentional or negligent act, causes damage to another, is obliged to compensate it.
The Public-Interest Exception
Free criticism is part of how the market works, and the law sees this. No obligation to compensate arises for statements that serve the protection of lawful public interests. In review disputes this exception protects consumers who share real experience: an opinion on the quality of the service mentioned, even a harsh one, serves a public interest. But the exception does not cover evidently incorrect factual assertions: consumer protection and defamation are different regimes. The same test of facticity therefore runs through every disputed review: first the statement is separated from the assessment, and only then is its correctness measured.
Protection of Business Reputation and Refutation
Alongside compensation, early instruments also operate. A person has the right, through the court, to protect honour, dignity or business reputation from infringement, and where the infringing information has been disseminated through mass-information means, its refutation must likewise occur through those means. A review platform is regarded as a means of mass dissemination, so the refutation must appear precisely there, in the same place where the review was shown.
Damage and Contributory Fault
Assessing damage from the business side demands precision: the change of rating, the halting of bookings, the dynamics of sales and comparative periods must be documented. In case of culpable infringement, the claim also includes non-pecuniary, moral damage, claimed independently of the pecuniary. Moreover, the rule on the allocation of fault also operates here: where the victim's own conduct also contributed to the occurrence of the damage, the obligation to compensate and its extent depend on whose fault predominates. A real flaw in the service and an unresponsive reaction to it also place fault on the entrepreneur's side. This rule also applies where the victim's fault is expressed in inaction — in the failure to use the possibility of avoiding or reducing the damage (Article 415).
In practice the source of the dispute is often competitive motivation: a strange cluster of reviews, similar formulations from the same period and common signs of the accounts reveal this motivation. In such a case the compensation claim is joined by substantiation of intent: the regime of intentionally disseminated facts is connected with graver consequences than mere negligence. Therefore, when preparing the claim, a comparative analysis of the authors, timing and formulations of the reviews is attached to the case as a separate exhibit, giving the court a complete factual picture.
Limitation
Time control is decisive: the limitation period for the right to demand compensation for tort damage is three years from the moment the victim learned of the damage or of the person obliged to compensate it. On a review platform the content remains for a long time and reawakens the damage with every new view, so the documentary trail of the moment of knowledge and the continuation of the damage is an integral part of preparing the claim.
Can liability be demanded for a review?
Yes, where the embedded statement is factual and evidently incorrect; an assessment of taste is not a fact (Article 993).
Does the exception protect criticism?
No compensation arises for statements serving lawful public interests (Article 993).
Where does the refutation appear?
Through the same means of dissemination — on the same platform, under the general norms of the Code.
What is the limitation period?
Three years from the moment of knowledge (Article 1008).
How We Help on Legal.ge
Our team builds review-related defamation from the business's position: we separate fact from opinion, fix the trail of the review and the change of rating, structure the refutation demand and, where necessary, present the compensation claim in court for pecuniary and moral damage. Contact Legal.ge so that damage from reviews is precisely measured and legally protected.