Workplace Defamation — the Framework
A rumour spread among colleagues, a manager's remark or a false assessment recorded in a working document is assessed within the same legal frame as any defamation — the Civil Code has no special norm for the workplace. There are two grounds: Article 18 — a person has the right, through the court, to protect his honour, dignity, privacy or business reputation; and Article 993 — a person who intentionally or negligently disseminates facts harmful to the property of another person must compensate the damage if the facts are evidently incorrect. The peculiarity of the workplace is that the false information directly affects career and income — and therefore its protection is not a matter to postpone.
One further circumstance: workplace defamation almost always spreads in a closed environment — a department, correspondence, private conversations — and therefore establishing it requires witnesses and documents. Correspondence and internal documents are the main source here: they fix the time, the author and the content simultaneously. Where no document exists, witness statements remain — and their timely fixation is decisive.