03/02/2020 Reachlocal UK Ltd & Anor v Bennett & Ors [2014] EWHC 3405 (QB) (21 October 2014) out. Mr Bray's evidence was that the defendants' email campaign employed an email bulk delivery service known as 'MailChimp'. 16. The claimants next rely on an email sent out by the defendants on 12 March 2014. They complain of the following passages: IS your ReachLocal IMC Telling You That We Are a Disgruntled Ex-Employee? … A lot of you have been asking for information about how to check your ReachLocal dashboard, to see if your marketing budget is being spent as you originally thought. Q. Where and how can you find this information? A. It seems you can only see this information by chance… This is all cleverly hidden using JavaScript… Q. What about the remainder of your budget? A. It seems to vanish into the darkness. 17. The next publication relied upon is a press release of which the claimants became aware on 10 March 2014. The press release, which it is asserted had clearly originated from the defendants as a blog post, and which had been provided by them, appeared on the Reuters and Pressat websites. So far as complained of, it reads as follows: ReachLocal – Corporate agency with a dark secret ReachLocal, a PPC (Pay Per Click) NASDAQ company, are finally being exposed for their manipulation of Google AdWords guidelines concerning price transparency towards their clients. It is well known that ReachLocal is one of the UK's largest AdWords' Certified Pay per Click Agencies, but there is a dark side to the agency that is now starting to emerge…. How ReachLocal use loopholes in Google AdWords guidelines: … … ReachLocal cleverly hide this information on their dashboard… ReachLocal have many claims to fame; one of which being in partnership with Google only a small number of UK agencies can claim this digital knighthood…. but after speaking with a number of different sales representatives … they all seem to be glorified car salesmen, and there is no real talent and definitely no digital marketing skills… The fact that this is not well known to the public is a sign that ReachLocal have hidden their tracks well, but after speaking to a number of ex-clients, the time seems to be up on this clever but clearly unethical and deceitful ploy that's been ongoing for many years. … it remains that many ReachLocal customers are still in the dark. 18. The claimants also became aware that the defendants were sending further emails to certain of their customers in similar terms to those used in the bulk email shots and on the Reuters and Pressat websites. They rely on seven separate emails sent to named customers between 14 and 24 February 2014. Five of those emails alleged that ReachLocal were conducting a scam; and two suggested that they were providing their customers with false information. 19. The inference invited by the claimants from (inter alia) the nature of the emails and the similarity of their wording is that they must have been sent out to and read by a very large number of the claimants' actual and potential customers resident in the United Kingdom. The inference is also invited in respect of customers resident in Germany and the USA, but since foreign publication is not pleaded, the claim www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2014/3405.html 5/14