The common law has long protected reputation very highly. The principal means by which it has done this is the tort of defamation. Justice Hallett in Foaminol Laboratories Ltd v British Artid Plastics Ltd ([1941] 2 All ER 393) famously remarked that “a claim for mere loss of reputation is the proper subject of an action for defamation and cannot ordinarily be sustained by means of any other form of action”. Continue reading