A bad review is one thing. A TikTok video and a Facebook page accusing a business of ruining someone's life, and third-party comments piling on to say it is going broke, is another. A recent Court of Appeal decision, Singh v Singh Homes Pty Ltd [2026] VSCA 191, handed down on 18 August 2026, shows just how far this kind of dispute can escalate, and confirms that businesses on the receiving end of a false or malicious online campaign have real, tested legal options. The case is Victorian, but the legal framework it applies, misleading and deceptive conduct law, the tort of injurious falsehood, and the defamation "serious harm" test, is largely uniform across Australia and applies in NSW in essentially the same terms.
In 2022, Gurvinderpal Singh engaged Singh Homes Pty Ltd to build a new home in Truganina, Victoria. After construction began in April 2023, the parties fell into dispute over payment timing and the quality of the work. Singh Homes terminated the contract in February 2024. Within days, Mr Singh posted on a Facebook page called "Dodgy Builders Melbourne", describing Singh Homes as the worst builder he had dealt with and inviting other prospective clients to contact him, and uploaded a TikTok video, in Punjabi, making detailed and highly critical claims about the company and naming its directors. The TikTok video was viewed around 220,000 times, and attracted third-party comments from viewers, including comments suggesting the company was going into liquidation.
Singh Homes and its two directors sued Mr Singh on three separate legal bases: misleading or deceptive conduct under section 18 of the Australian Consumer Law (the ACL), the tort of injurious falsehood, and, for the directors personally, defamation. A County Court jury found Mr Singh liable for misleading or deceptive conduct and for a series of injurious falsehoods. The trial judge then assessed damages: $673,000 for Singh Homes' lost business profits from customers it said it lost as a result of the publications, a further $10,000 for the company's loss of commercial reputation, and $5,000 each for the two directors personally. She also granted an injunction restraining Mr Singh from publishing similar material and requiring him to remove what he had already posted. However, she dismissed the directors' separate defamation claims, finding they had not proven the "serious harm" element that Australian defamation law now requires.
Dealing with a false review, a defamatory post, or a social media campaign against your business?
Which legal options actually apply, misleading conduct, injurious falsehood, defamation, or more than one, depends heavily on the specific facts. Our Litigation and Dispute Resolution team can assess your situation and the realistic remedies available, including removal orders and damages.
Free consultationMr Singh sought leave to appeal the misleading and deceptive conduct finding, arguing the trial judge had misdirected the jury on whether his posts were made "in trade or commerce", a threshold requirement for section 18 of the ACL to apply at all. This is a genuinely unresolved question in Australian law. The Court of Appeal noted there is no decided case where a consumer, reviewing a business they had genuinely dealt with, has been found to have contravened section 18 purely through a social media review, as opposed to cases involving competitors or a pre-existing commercial dispute between businesses. The Court did not need to resolve that question here, because Mr Singh's own lawyer had agreed to the trial judge's jury directions at the time and never sought to correct them, which is ordinarily fatal to a later appeal on that ground. The Court also found the point academic in any event, because the unappealed injurious falsehood finding provided an independent legal basis for the same damages and injunction, regardless of how the ACL point was ultimately resolved. Leave to appeal was refused on all seven grounds Mr Singh raised, including separate arguments about how the lost-profits damages had been calculated and an evidence objection, none of which succeeded.
For businesses, the practical lesson is that injurious falsehood, a common law tort covering false statements made maliciously that cause actual financial loss, can do useful work even where the more heavily litigated question of whether a review counts as conduct "in trade or commerce" remains genuinely open.
The more significant part of the decision for reputational disputes is the directors' cross-appeal. Every Australian defamation regime except Western Australia's now requires a plaintiff to prove their case caused, or is likely to cause, "serious harm" to their reputation, a threshold created specifically to filter out trivial claims before they reach a full hearing. In NSW, this is section 10A of the Defamation Act 2005, in force since 1 July 2021, and the Court of Appeal confirmed it is intended to be interpreted consistently across every state and territory that has adopted it.
At trial, the judge accepted the TikTok video had a genuine tendency to cause harm and was widely viewed, but held there was no evidence of actual harm to the directors' personal reputations, largely because she treated the most damaging material, third-party comments suggesting the company was going broke, as the responsibility of the commenters rather than Mr Singh. The Court of Appeal held this was an error. The jury had already found that Mr Singh was the publisher of those third-party comments, applying the principle from the High Court's decision in Fairfax Media Publications Pty Ltd v Voller, which holds that a person who invites public comment on their own post or video can be legally responsible for what others post in response. Once the third-party comments were properly taken into account, the Court found the combined evidence "comfortably established" serious harm to both directors' reputations. Leave to cross-appeal was granted, and the cross-appeal was allowed.
The Court of Appeal did not assess the directors' defamation damages itself. The directors had asked for at least $100,000 each, but the Court considered the argument on quantum too brief to resolve fairly and remitted the assessment back to the trial judge, who had heard the original evidence. That reassessment is still pending.
Three things stand out for any NSW business, and particularly a builder, dealing with a damaging review campaign. First, a false or malicious online campaign rarely raises only one legal issue, and it is worth having each one assessed separately rather than assuming a single cause of action is the only option. Injurious falsehood, misleading and deceptive conduct, and defamation each have different elements, different plaintiffs (a company generally cannot sue in defamation, but its directors may be able to if they are personally identified), and different remedies. Second, comments left by other people on a post or video are not automatically someone else's problem. Where a business or individual invites public comment, whether on a review platform, a Facebook page or a TikTok video, they may be treated as the publisher of what follows, and that material can be central to proving reputational harm. Third, an injunction requiring removal of existing material and restraining further publication is a realistic remedy in a genuinely serious case, in addition to damages, and does not depend on the more novel and unsettled legal questions being resolved first.
This case is Victorian, but the legal framework it applies is not confined to Victoria. Section 18 of the Australian Consumer Law is Commonwealth legislation that applies uniformly nationwide. The defamation "serious harm" element exists in essentially identical terms in the Defamation Act 2005 (NSW), and the Court of Appeal in this case expressly treated the underlying provision as part of a uniform national scheme meant to be interpreted consistently in every adopting jurisdiction. Injurious falsehood is a common law tort recognised throughout Australia, including NSW. None of this turns on where in NSW a business is located or where the reviewer happens to live. A construction business in Western Sydney facing a hostile TikTok campaign, or a strata manager in the Illawarra dealing with a defamatory Facebook page, is assessed under the same principles as a business anywhere else in the state.
If your business, or you personally as a director, is dealing with false or damaging reviews, comments or social media posts, our Litigation and Dispute Resolution team can assess which of these causes of action genuinely fit your situation and what remedies are realistically available. Where the underlying dispute also touches a construction contract, our Building and Construction team can advise on that side of the matter at the same time. Get in touch for a free consultation.
This publication is intended as general information only and does not constitute legal advice. Please seek independent legal advice before acting on anything contained in it.
Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards Legislation.
Potentially, depending on what was said and why. Options can include defamation (if you are personally identified and the harm meets the serious harm threshold), injurious falsehood (a false statement made maliciously that causes financial loss), and misleading or deceptive conduct under the Australian Consumer Law, though that last option depends on unsettled questions about when a review counts as conduct in trade or commerce.
Generally no. Most Australian defamation law, including in NSW, does not allow companies themselves to sue in defamation, other than certain small not-for-profits. Directors or individuals who are personally identified and harmed by the publication may be able to bring their own defamation claim, as happened in the Singh Homes case.
Since 1 July 2021, section 10A of the Defamation Act 2005 (NSW) requires a plaintiff to prove that a publication has caused, or is likely to cause, serious harm to their reputation before a defamation claim can succeed. It is assessed by a judge, not a jury.
You can be. Courts have found that a person who creates a public post or video and invites comment can be treated as the publisher of what others post in response, particularly where those comments cause further reputational harm. This was central to the Singh Homes case.
Injurious falsehood is a common law tort covering false statements, made maliciously, that cause actual financial loss to a business or its interests, rather than reputational harm to a person as such. It can apply even where defamation or misleading conduct claims face genuine legal uncertainty.
Courts can award damages for proven financial loss, a further allowance for loss of commercial reputation, and, where a defamation claim succeeds, damages for that separate harm. Courts can also grant an injunction requiring existing material to be removed and restraining further publications.
Not for the underlying principles. The Australian Consumer Law applies uniformly nationwide, the defamation serious harm element is in near identical terms in NSW's own Defamation Act 2005, and injurious falsehood is a common law tort recognised across Australia.
Preserve evidence of the publication, including view counts, comments and any related messages, before it can be deleted or edited, and get advice on which causes of action genuinely fit the facts before deciding how to respond publicly.
