-4The first action,2 which was commenced on 28 October 2008, relates 6. to two batches of defamatory statements, the first having been posted on 27 and 28 March 2007 (“the 2007 statements”) and the second on 24 October 2008 (“the 2008 statements”). Initially, the action only concerned the 2008 statements which first came to the appellants’ attention on the day they were posted. As Chung J found at the trial, those statements contained the defamatory imputations that the appellants were involved in drug trafficking and money laundering; that they were involved in illegal and immoral activities and were corrupt, illegal, immoral and unethical. The appellants’ solicitors wrote to the respondents on the day that the statements appeared on the website, threatening legal proceedings. The respondents were consequently alerted to the existence of the offending words on 27 October 2008 and removed them from the website some three and a half hours after being so informed. 7. Although posted much earlier, the appellants did not know about the 2007 statements until 14 November 2008 and, on the Judge’s finding, those statements were not brought to the respondents’ attention until 10 December 2008. The 2007 statements related to the murder of a newspaper vendor in 19993 and involved the imputation that the appellants had deliberately avoided reporting the trial and conviction of the men arrested and were thus somehow connected with or accomplices in the crime. Those statements were not removed from the website until August 2009, more than eight months after the respondents had been informed of their existence. The cause of action arising out of the 2007 statements was added by amendment to the first action. In the light of the delay in taking down the offending words, the Judge found that there was no defence to the action based on the 2007 statements and awarded the appellants damages of HK$100,000.00 in respect thereof. 2 HCA 2140/2008. 3 Dealt with by the Court of Appeal in HKSAR v Lo Hon-hing CACC No 107 of 2007 (12 September 2008).