Notice and action

How to complain about content on Insolvency News -- whether it is one of our articles, a reader comment we have hosted, or your personal data appearing on the site. This page is our published Defamation Act 2013 s.5 procedure and our UK GDPR Article 17 procedure rolled into one.

What this procedure covers

• You believe an article on the site is defamatory about you.
• You believe an article on the site contains a factual error about you (we route these to corrections).
• You believe a reader comment we have hosted on an article is defamatory, harassing, or unlawful.
• You are exercising your UK GDPR Article 17 (right to erasure) in respect of personal data published on the site.
• You are the subject of court-imposed reporting restrictions or active criminal proceedings that affect material we have published.

How to lodge a complaint

Write to legal@insolvency-news.uk. To meet the Defamation Act 2013 s.5 notice requirements, your complaint should include:

• Your name and a means by which we can contact you (email, postal address, or solicitor's contact).
• The full URL of the article (or the article URL and the comment ID, where it concerns a reader comment).
• The specific sentence or sentences you dispute, quoted verbatim.
• The factual basis for your dispute -- ideally a verifiable public record (a Companies House filing reference, a court order, a discharge certificate, a corrected Gazette notice). Where the dispute is about defamation rather than fact, the meaning you say the words convey and why you say it is false.
• The remedy you are asking for: no action, an editor's note, a factual correction, a right-of-reply append, redaction of personal data, or full takedown with noindex.

Our response SLA

• Acknowledged within 48 hours of receipt at legal@insolvency-news.uk.
• Decision communicated within 7 working days of receipt. Where we need to write to a third party (the original commenter, an insolvency practitioner whose IP number is contested, the relevant court) we will tell you we are doing so and revise the deadline.
• Action carried out, where we agree, immediately on decision -- the article is updated, the comment removed, or the right-of-reply posted on the same day we decide.

Possible outcomes

One of the following:

• No action. We respond explaining why we do not consider the complaint well-founded. You retain all your legal remedies.
• Editor's note. A dated annotation appended to the article (the original text remains, with context).
• Right of reply. Your response is appended to the article with attribution and date.
• Factual correction. The disputed passage is corrected and a dated correction note is added to the article foot. The change is also logged in our corrections log.
• Redaction of personal data. We redact specific identifiable data (for example, an exact home address that was published in error) while retaining the substance of the article.
• Takedown with noindex. The article body is replaced with a takedown note, a noindex tag is set, and the URL is delisted from sitemaps. We retain the URL so that any external links to it land on the takedown note rather than 404.
• Comment removal. For complaints about reader comments, the comment is removed from public view and replaced with a "[Comment removed]" placeholder where appropriate.

UK GDPR Article 17 (right to erasure) balancing test

The right to erasure does not automatically apply to journalism about public records. Where you are the subject of a published insolvency notice, we will apply the following balancing test:

• Director named in error (the Gazette notice and Companies House both list someone else): we will correct or redact within the corrections SLA.
• Director discharged from bankruptcy within the last six years: live coverage retained, with annotation noting discharge and discharge date if you supply the certificate.
• Director discharged more than six years ago, where rehabilitation and absence of further enforcement are documented: we will consider noindex on request, with the URL retained but delisted from search engines.
• Deceased subject: editor's note appended on family request. Where coverage is recent and material, we will retain the article; where it relates to a long-discharged matter, we will consider takedown.
• Active court reporting restrictions: we will comply with the order. Send us the order reference and we will action on the same day.
• Active criminal investigation covered by the Contempt of Court Act 1981: if proceedings are active we will consider de-publishing pending the outcome, in line with the Act.

What we will not do

We will not remove an article or delist a director simply because the publication is unwelcome. The Gazette notice is a public record; our article is a report of that record. We will not alter the substance of an article to soften how the public record reads.

If we cannot agree

You retain all your legal remedies. We do not require you to use this procedure before pursuing them, and using this procedure does not waive any of your rights. We are not currently signed up to IPSO or IMPRESS; complaints about the editorial standards of an article (rather than its facts) can be raised through our editorial standards complaints route.