Section 1(2) Defamation Act 2013
What financial loss can actually be evidenced — and what a court would do with it.
Defametrics models the financial impact of defamatory publication on UK businesses and professionals using verified case law, peer-reviewed economic research and a published methodology. It is neutral: the same analysis serves a claimant testing a claim and a defendant testing an exaggerated one.
- Cases won
- 22
- claimant succeeded, published in full here
- With a court figure
- 2
- damages or accepted loss recorded by the court
- Sectors covered
- 16
- trades and industries represented in the corpus
Figures are the live corpus, not a marketing count. Only judgments the claimant won, carrying a court-accepted loss figure, feed the loss model. 41,891 further judgments are in the analysis queue.
What this platform will not do
- Invent a loss figure. Where the evidence is not there, the report says so.
- Treat a damages award as a measure of commercial loss. They are different things.
- Cite a case that has not been checked against the primary source.
- Promise an outcome. Every figure is a modelled estimate with its assumptions on the face of it.
- Provide legal advice. This is analysis for you and your solicitor to test.
How the assessment works
Four stages, each of which shows its working. You can stop after stage one at no cost.
1. Describe the publication
Business, sector, turnover band, platform, reach, duration and what was said.
2. Match the evidence
Verified UK judgments, economic research and legal principles relevant to your facts.
3. Model the loss
Conservative, central and upper ranges with every multiplier disclosed and testable.
4. Court-ready report
An eighteen-section report a solicitor can interrogate line by line.
Built on evidence, not on assertion
Every case record is tiered by authority. Tier A means a substantive High Court or appellate judgment on quantum or serious financial loss. Anything not yet checked against the primary source carries a visible verification warning, and unverified records never contribute a figure to a loss model.
Where the case law does not answer a question — and on quantum it very often does not — the platform says so rather than filling the gap.
Read the full methodologyThe statutory test
“Harm to the reputation of a body that trades for profit is not ‘serious harm’ unless it has caused or is likely to cause the body serious financial loss.”
Defamation Act 2013, section 1(2). The whole platform exists to answer the question that subsection asks.