The Reluctant Blogger

I received the following email today, from the CEO of a company in Australia. I’m pretty sure his claims, espcially where he cites specific Australian law, are invalid, but what I’m interested in is: how would an international lawsuit take place? More specifically: if an Australian company decided to sue Arlington Development, LLC (an American company of a Delaware incorporation), and AD does not comply or respond to the terms of the lawsuit, what are the implications?

The email:

Your email reply has been forwarded to me regarding the ‘review’ of easyflowers.com.au on JobVent.com. I should first of all mention that I am XXXXXXXX, CEO of XXXXXXXX “the boss who has no respect for staff” as referred to in the review of XXXXXXXX on your website.

I would first of all like to thank you for removing the more defamatory comments made about me personally on your website.

Secondly, I would like to ask you to reconsider your decision not to remove the review of XXXXXXX from your website based upon the following reasons.

1. The information contained in the review is false and misleading.
2. Under Australian law, your organization may be making defamatory statements. http://www.artslaw.com.au/LegalInformation/Defamation/DefamationLawsAfterJan06.asp
In particular I refer you to:
“Everyone involved in the publication is potentially liable and each, all, or some can be sued. This means that writers, publishers, editors, artists and gallery owners must all be aware of the potential dangers. This also means that it is no defence to argue that you are only repeating rumours or a comment made by somebody else: you can be liable for a republication”
3. Under Australian law, your organization may be in breach of s52 of The Trade Practices Act 1974 which relates to ‘misleading and deceptive conduct’. http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/tpa1974149/s52.html
4. Australia, it would appear is also outside your area of operations with regards to Arlington Development, LLC, hence we see no benefit to your organization for pursuing this matter any further.

While we appreciate that you may be conducting your business in accordance with the laws of the United States, there are substantial differences between the laws of Australia and the US particularly in relation to defamation. We trust that you and your organization will respect the laws of other countries as good business practice and remove the review on your website which is clearly in breach in this instance.

I look forward to your response on this matter.

Kind regards,

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 28th, 2007 at 5:56 am and is filed under JobVent.com. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.