Quaife Differentials, Nasty Letter

[isham-research.freeserve.co.uk at pop.pol.net.uk]

>     May I ask who contacted Quaife with concerns stemming from my original
> post to this listserv?  May I also note that for some reason my email
> address and name were given to them.  I don't particularly like this being
> done.  I received a nasty letter from Quaife America saying I made libelous
> statement against there company.  Of course the fellow who wrote me had no
> idea that I had been dooped by a competitor of theirs plus had posed a
> question to the list, not a statement on their product.

Not me.

I don't know how different US law is from UK law in this respect - I
think our libel laws are actually very different.  In the UK, it's very
hard indeed to take action for libel of a product or a company - much
harder than it is to take action for personal libel.

The most difficult aspect is that you have to prove an actual pecuniary
loss to the company concerned.  Not just a revenue loss, which
effectively means you can't take action if the product isn't profitable.
You have to find at least one individual or company that will state to a
court that they didn't buy the product or deal with the company
concerned because of the libel, and you have to prove you lost actual
income.

It's so difficult to do that product libel cases are _VERY_ rare in the
UK.  I think MacDonalds dearly wish they hadn't started.  The usual
course of action is for the company to apply for an injunction against
the alleged libeller - any breach is then contempt of court and dealt
with by the system.

I've seen this process from both sides.  Once I said something about a
company's finances that triggered this type of response.  I told them to
go see a lawyer and gave them some legal references to take along.  I
got a few more nastygrams but the whole thing ceased when our
authorities started investigating the company along the lines I'd
mentioned.

Once I was working for a company and seriously incorrect statements
were made about one of our products.  We complained, and the statements
were repeated.  So I started the process off.  I can now (about a
decade after the event) prove that the individual concerned was in the
pay of a competitor and I have evidence both of his statements to our
customers and the truth - orders of magnitude apart.  Despite this,
I was never able to find a customer willing to state they had changed
a purchase decision as a result of the libel.  They just wouldn't get
involved.

I can understand Quaife wanting to protect their reputation.  But I
think the correct way to do it would be to for them to explain the
current situation to you and ask you politely to publish this
information in the same forum in which you asked the question.

Their only justifiable complaint, in my opinion, is that you could have
asked them directly rather than asking in a public forum.  Whether you
would have believed the answer is another issue.

In my experience, one of the common reasons for aggressive responses
like the one you reported is that the company involved simply doesn't
have any other kind of response to make.

--
 Phil Payne
 UK Audi quattro Owners Club
 http://www.isham-research.freeserve.co.uk/quattro
 Phone +44 7785 302803   Fax: +44 7785 309674