Sending a well written Concerns Notice is now the mandatory first step in bringing a claim for defamation against the publisher of offending material.
The Concerns Notice needs to do a number of things including:
- identify the material complained of; and
- identify the defamatory imputations which are said to arise from that material;
- identify the serious harm which has been, or is likely to be, suffered (for a company that means serious financial loss).
If it the Concerns Notice does not adequately particularise those things, then the recipient is likely to issue a request for particulars under s14 of the Defamation Act 2005.
A well written Concerns Notice is likely to be expensive, but if it is prepared by the right defamation lawyer it can be money well spent, bringing an early end to the dispute or at least providing a lot of the ground work for what would later become the Statement of Claim to be filed in court.