Companies have no redress against wrongful exposure for fraud

ALAN PEAT
IF YOUR company is exposed in
the press as having been charged
by Customs with fraud - a current focus of the authorities - you have no redress, even if the court finds that the charge doesn’t have a
leg to stand on.
“There is nothing you can do from a legal point-of-view,” said Quintus van der Merwe, maritime legal specialist at attorneys Shepstone & Wylie.
You certainly have no claim against SARS, according to the Customs Act,
as long as the authorities feel they have good grounds for laying the charge, and that they haven’t
done anything malicious.
And, if the press picks up the company name in its court reporting, you also don’t have
much of a cure.
“Short of publishing a paid notice or requesting that the newspaper carry the fact that your company was cleared by the court of the charge, there is little you can do,” said Van der Merwe.