*Harlequin win legal case against Singing Pig

Harlequin Property has won a lengthy legal case against Singing Pig Ltd and its owner Philip Martin.

London’s High Court awarded Harlequin Property in excess of £90,000 in damages and costs for “defamatory statements” published on the property and investment forum.

According to Chairman Dave Ames, Harlequin Property and Singing Pig had been involved in a game of “legal cat and mouse” for more than three years before Ames became “totally fed up with the situation” and began legal proceedings in late 2010.

In the period between 2007 and the summer of 2010, Harlequin wrote to Singing Pig on several occasions requesting the removal of “defamatory posts”. However, the matter came to a head when the Singing Pig owner suggested Ames should either purchase his business or take legal action as a means of final resolving the dispute.

Summing up the case, the judge made several observations about Philip Martin's attitude and conduct leading up to the proceedings noting that one of his emails was a "cynical response and suggests an underlying purpose".

He went on to state that both the gravity of the libel and the extent of the publication were so serious that he had chosen to award damages at the higher end of the scale.

Although Harlequin Property were unable to recover all their costs, Ames believes the exercise was worth while:

“It’s taken a great deal of time and effort but I’m delighted with the result. Now the resort is open, we are working with major tour operators and the comments [publicly viewable on the internet] were both unfounded and commercially damaging” Ames told Global edge.

Although the judgement debt remains due, Mr Martin has filed for bankruptcy and applied to have Singing Pig Limited struck off the register at Companies House.

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Source: Global edge

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