Guerrilla Marketing Ltd v NGM Advertising: how email chains can escalate from investigation to fraud allegation

In a judgement handed down on 8 May 2026, Mr Justice Coppel determined the natural and ordinary meanings of six emails sent by NGM Advertising Limited and two of its employees to a former customer, Boohoo.com UK Ltd (BH), concerning rival company Guerrilla Marketing Ltd. The case, heard in the King's Bench Division's Media and Communications List, offers a careful analysis of how commercial allegations can harden in meaning across a single email chain — with significant consequences for the Chase level framework.

The underlying dispute concerns competing businesses operating digital advertising screens on university and college properties. Between 16 and 29 April 2024, NGM's Guy Thurlow and Gregory Allen contacted BH to suggest that Guerrilla Marketing had been marketing advertising space on screens it had no right to sell. Guerrilla Marketing brought claims in libel, malicious falsehood, unlawful interference with economic interests, and procuring breach of contract.

The preliminary issues trial addressed three questions: the natural and ordinary meanings of the six emails, whether those meanings were statements of fact or opinion, and whether they were defamatory at common law. The court was asked to assume, for these purposes, that all six emails referred to the claimant, notwithstanding that none named it explicitly.

Applying the principles in Koutsogiannis v Random House Group Ltd [2019] EWHC 48 (QB), the court noted that the hypothetical reasonable reader was a businessperson operating within the student advertising market — someone capable of reading the emails with commercial acuity and taking allegations of supplier misconduct seriously, whilst also bearing in mind that the sender was a commercial rival.

The first email, framed around a "Potential Issue" under investigation, conveyed only that there were grounds to investigate whether Guerrilla Marketing had marketed screens it was not entitled to — a Chase level 3 meaning, and the only publication found not to be defamatory at common law.

The second email marked a significant shift. Mr Thurlow's references to "false claims" and "deceiving customers" moved the meaning to Chase level 2: reasonable grounds to suspect dishonest conduct. The court rejected the defendants' argument that deception could simply connote the effect of inaccurate information rather than deliberate falsehood, applying the reasoning from Haviland v Andrew Lownie Literary Agency Ltd [2021] EWHC 143 (QB) that the deliberate making of false statements connotes deception.

By the third email, the position had hardened further to Chase level 1. The unqualified allegation of "fraudulent activity" — supported by a list of 18 sites said to be exclusively operated by NGM — was found to be a statement of fact rather than opinion. The court held that, in context, the fraud allegation was not an evaluative gloss but a factual conclusion drawn from asserted facts presented as true.

The fourth, fifth, and sixth emails maintained the Chase level 1 standard. Notably, the court applied the repetition rule to Mr Thurlow's assertion in the fourth email that "other media owners" had been affected, finding that his failure to express any doubt as to the veracity of those second-hand allegations, combined with his own stated belief that the total was "much higher than 18", was sufficient to make the allegation his own.

The sixth email, which confirmed in response to a direct question from BH that the claimant would be "lying" if it had listed the exclusive NGM sites, was found to confirm dishonest misrepresentation — a finding supported by the accumulated weight of the earlier correspondence.

All six publications were found to be statements of fact. Five of the six were defamatory at common law.