In the first case of its kind the High Court in London was tasked with protecting the reputation of a company, Takenaka UK Ltd against the spread of lies against it by a disgruntled ex-employee.

The ex-employee, David Frankl was ordered to pay £26,000 damages and Takenaka’s legal costs of over £100,000 after Mre Justice Alliott, sitting at the High Court in London, ruled that defamatory emails were sent by him to his ex-employer, using a false name.

In a series of emails, which aimed to cause damage to Takenaka’s reputation, Mr Frankl (who was using the name of Christina Realtor ) accused the company of hypocrisy, double standards and callousness. Mr Frankl’s real identity was unravelled after the laptop he was using to send the emails was traced all the way to Turkey where he was working at the time and by ordering both the Internet Service Provider CompuServe, and Microsoft to hand over account records. This case which was decided back in 2000 is still good law and it gives businesses some reassurance that those who choose to send anonymous emails can still be traced and pay a price for it.