A review accusing a company of deceiving its customers, a former business partner publishing an exposé on LinkedIn, a report filed with a regulator: these attacks look alike, but they fall under different legal regimes. Depending on the characterisation, the time limit to act moves from three months to five years — and choosing the wrong legal basis can destroy the claim altogether. For a company and its executive, characterisation is not a lawyer’s refinement: it decides the outcome.
Defamation or disparagement: the line that decides everything
The starting point is a rule the Court of Cassation states consistently: absent a legally provided restriction, freedom of expression is a right whose exercise, save for the disparagement of products or services, cannot be challenged on the basis of article 1240 of the Civil Code (Cass. 1st Civ., 2 July 2014, no. 13-16.730). In other words: ordinary civil liability is available in one scenario only — where the statement discredits products or services. As soon as it damages the honour or standing of a person, natural or legal, the case falls under the Law of 29 July 1881, with its formalism and its three-month limitation period.
The line is narrow, and the Court of Cassation has just restated it in a case that was anything but academic.
A mutual insurer had circulated to its members a press article headlined “The great dentist-shark scam”, together with leaflets on the pointlessness of certain billed procedures. The dental profession’s governing body obtained a judgment for disparagement of the profession. Quashed without remittal: the lower court failed to draw the legal consequences of its own findings, “from which it followed that what was at issue was not products or services but the conduct of a profession”. The claim under article 1240 of the Civil Code was therefore closed.
Read on Légifrance →The lesson is twofold. First, disparagement requires a communication discrediting the products or services of a business or service provider — not the conduct of a person, an executive or a profession. Second, the consequence is not merely procedural: having taken the wrong route, the professional body left with no compensation, and no possibility of starting again.
The converse holds equally. Where the criticism genuinely targets commercial practices and the quality of services, disparagement is upheld — and the company then benefits from the ordinary five-year limitation period, far more comfortable than the three months of press law (Cass. 1st Civ., 20 September 2012, no. 11-20.963).
Two decisions in 2023 closed, in quick succession, the two most tempting escape routes. The Commercial Chamber first held that a company circulating among customers the existence of a criminal complaint and proceedings for “malversations” against its competitor committed defamation, not disparagement — and that the author’s commercial motive, capturing market share, was irrelevant to the characterisation: the claim, brought in January 2014 over a last act of circulation in February 2013, was time-barred (Cass. com., 28 June 2023, no. 21-15.862). The First Civil Chamber then quashed a decision in which a court, sitting in interim proceedings, had ordered the removal of online content imputing a “fraud upon a judgment” to a company under penalty payment: it had relied on disparagement and manifestly unlawful disturbance while itself finding that the statements sought to “lower the standing” of the company among its customers, not to criticise its products (Cass. 1st Civ., 18 October 2023, no. 22-20.428).
The strategic consequence is important and often overlooked: interim proceedings do not provide an escape from the 1881 Law. The urgency judge remains competent to stop an attack, but cannot base the decision on disparagement where the statement targets reputation. The legal basis must be right, even when pleading under time pressure.
The price of the wrong legal basis
Choosing the wrong route does not merely lead to dismissal: it can void the originating document — and, with the three-month period running throughout, cause the definitive loss of the claim.
A company had sued in civil liability the author of statements published in a newspaper, complaining of the publicity given to a criminal complaint against it. The imputations concerned specific acts of malversation and targeted the company itself, to the exclusion of its products or services: they therefore amounted to defamation, redress for which can only be sought under the 1881 Law. The writ, which cited no provision of that Law, was void — the formalities of section 53 being substantial to the rights of the defence.
Read on Légifrance →That is why analysis of the statement always precedes drafting of the claim. A writ that hesitates between the two bases, or that pleads both insult and defamation for the same words, faces the same sanction.
A review cannot be sliced up
Faced with a review mixing product criticism and personal attack — the ordinary configuration of online reviews — the temptation is to sort: this passage is disparagement, that one defamation. The Court of Cassation has rejected that approach.
A dissatisfied buyer had published on Instagram, about a watch dealer, a series of messages mixing criticism of the parts sold, accusatory hashtags and the imputation of a “con artists’ scam”. The court of appeal had sliced the message up in order to set aside certain passages as mere product criticism. Quashed: in order to determine their true meaning, “the offending statements must not be taken in isolation but interpreted in relation to each other”.
Read on Légifrance →The practical reach is considerable. A review whose overall tenor imputes deliberate deception does not become mere disparagement because it also mentions product quality. Hence a requirement of method from the outset: the bailiff’s report must cover the entire publication — headline, body, hashtags, comments, discussion thread — and not only the sentence that stings most.
The former employee and the “whistleblower”
This is the most delicate litigation, because it balances the company’s reputation against two strongly protected freedoms. The Criminal Chamber set the framework in January 2026, in a case whose facts have become commonplace: an article published on LinkedIn by a former business partner.
Article 122-9 of the Criminal Code, which provides a defence for whistleblowers, does not apply to defamation proceedings. Where the defendant relies on that status, good faith is assessed under the criteria developed by the European Court of Human Rights (Halet v. Luxembourg, 14 February 2023); failing disclosure of confidential information obtained at work, under the ordinary, stricter criteria. Conviction upheld, with a €10,000 suspended fine: the accusations had not been seriously verified and reflected an intent to harm the former partner personally.
Read on Légifrance →The decision serves both sides, and that is what makes it valuable. For the company under attack: invoking whistleblower status is not an automatic shield; anyone who failed to verify their accusations seriously, or who is settling scores, answers for them. For the author: criticism anchored in a debate of public interest, supported by a sufficient factual basis, expressed with restraint and without personal animosity, remains protected.
Employment law follows the same line. An employee’s freedom of expression is protected so long as it does not exceed its limits: a dismissal based on a non-abusive exercise of that freedom is void. But systematic disparagement of the employer to third parties, or untruthful accusations made in bad faith, amount to abuse.
The false report: malicious accusation
One form of attack escapes all of the reasoning above, and is often overlooked: the untruthful report addressed not to the public but to an authority — a regulator, a professional body, an administration, an employer.
That conduct falls under article 226-10 of the Criminal Code, which punishes the denunciation of a fact liable to result in judicial, administrative or disciplinary sanctions, known to be wholly or partly inaccurate: five years’ imprisonment and a €45,000 fine. It is not a press offence — neither the 1881 formalism nor the three-month period applies. One caveat is decisive in practice: the falsity of the denounced fact follows from the final decision of acquittal, discharge or dismissal. In most cases, therefore, one must await the outcome of the proceedings triggered by the report before prosecuting its author.
Who sues: the company, the executive, or both?
A single post may hit three targets at once: the executive by name, the company, and the products. Three regimes, three deadlines, sometimes three forums.
The company sues for its own reputation where its honour or standing is damaged — the fine for public defamation of a private party, natural or legal person, is €12,000. The executive has a separate personal claim where targeted as such; it does not arise automatically from the mere fact of representing the company. The two claims accumulate but never merge: they require distinct originating documents, each subject to the formalism of the 1881 Law.
On the choice between notice to the platform, delisting, accelerated proceedings, civil interim relief and the criminal route, as well as on the three-month countdown and its traps, see our comprehensive analysis: online reputation attacks: what remedies?
Frequently asked questions
Can a very negative Google review be challenged?
It depends on what it imputes. Criticism of the product, service or performance — even excessive — is disparagement, actionable in civil liability with a five-year limitation period. The imputation of a specific fact damaging honour, such as deliberate deception or fraud, is defamation, with its three-month deadline. And the review is assessed as a whole, not passage by passage (Cass. 1st Civ., 11 May 2022, no. 21-12.063).
Can unfair competition be invoked to avoid the three-month deadline?
No, where the statement targets the honour or standing of the business. Freedom of expression can only be challenged under article 1240 of the Civil Code in cases of disparagement of products or services, and the author’s commercial motive is irrelevant to that characterisation. A writ placed on the civil basis when the facts fall under the 1881 Law faces nullity (Cass. com., 26 September 2018, no. 17-15.502).
May a former employee publish whatever they wish about a former employer?
No. Their freedom of expression is protected, but it has limits: systematic disparagement to third parties, or untruthful accusations made in bad faith, amount to abuse. And invoking whistleblower status does not bar defamation proceedings: the defence under article 122-9 of the Criminal Code does not apply there, good faith being assessed under the European Court of Human Rights criteria (Cass. crim., 13 January 2026, no. 24-86.344).
About the author
Mehdy Kadri is a lawyer at the Paris Bar. He practises with Cabinet Kadri Avocat (Paris 8th) in criminal defence, business and tax criminal law, cybercrime and crypto-assets, press law and human rights. He publishes regularly in AJ Pénal (Dalloz) and the Encyclopédie Doctrine.
This analysis forms part of the firm’s practice in reputation and information law and in business criminal law. It does not constitute legal advice and cannot replace tailored guidance on an individual matter.
