An online complaint platform can be a useful tool for consumers, but it can also be a source of great frustration for businesses. A ruling by the president of the Brussels French-speaking enterprise court on 29 January 2025, sheds bright light on the limits of such platforms. While hosting a complaint platform is permissible per se, the president ruled that a scoring system that inevitably leads to a negative rating is a form of unlawful defamation and must be discontinued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The case revolved around a dispute between Interm\u00e9diance, an association of bailiffs, and Test-Achats, the well-known consumer organization<\/sup>. Test-Achats had created an online complaints platform on its website where consumers could file complaints against specific companies. Such a page was automatically created for Interm\u00e9diance after several complaints were received<\/sup><\/sup><\/sup><\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On this page, visitors were shown not only the complaints, but also a \"complaint management score.\" Interm\u00e9diance received a score of 54 out of 100, resulting in the qualitative rating of \"moderate.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n Interm\u00e9diance went to court and demanded a prohibitory injunction of this practice. It argued that the platform was an illegal practice that bypassed the official disciplinary bodies for judicial officers and seriously damaged its reputation<\/sup><\/sup><\/sup><\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The President of the enterprise court made a clear distinction between the admissibility of the complaint platform itself and the legality of the scoring system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 1. The complaint platform itself is not illegal<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The president ruled that the creation of a complaints platform by a consumer organization falls perfectly within its social purpose. Test-Achats does not claim disciplinary powers and does not replace official control bodies. The argument that the complainants (debtors) were not \"consumers\" in the contractual sense of the word was rejected. The president argued that the term \"consumer\" in this context should be interpreted broadly as \"any citizen.\" Even the fact that a platform structurally collects only negative complaints does not in itself make it illegal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2. The scoring system is indeed illegal: an act of defamation<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n However, the court was much more critical of the scoring system. Scoring was calculated based on three criteria:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The president followed Interm\u00e9diance's reasoning that debtors, against whom enforcement is pending, will by definition never be \"satisfied\" with the judicial officer. This made it impossible for Interm\u00e9diance to achieve the 50% of points linked to plaintiff satisfaction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even if Interm\u00e9diance responded perfectly and immediately to every complaint, its score could never exceed 50 points (35 + 15). According to Test-Achats' own scale, a score of 50 points places a company in the \"mediocre\" category. The president concluded that the system was set up so that a poor rating was inevitable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This, the president argued is an act of unlawful defamation that unjustifiably damages the company's reputation, regardless of whether the complaints themselves were justified. The publication of such a score was therefore considered an unlawful market practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe ruling<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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