[abxyz]

> ...and still cost high four figures to defend

You do not need to "defend" against a "spurious defamation letter". The (very profitable) business of sending legal letters is based on the misunderstanding of the law that is perpetuated online. Legal letters are to law firms what bandwidth is to cloud hosting providers: free money.

[closewith]

In the UK, under the UK Civil Procedure Rules, you are expected to engage in the Pre-Action Protocol and provide a substantive response within 14 days, and failure to do so can effect you credibility and standing in court. So you do not have to respond, but not doing so risks sanction from the court for non-engagement.

[abxyz]

You're proving my point. You are catastrophising.

A response to a "spurious defamation letter" does not cost "high four figures". Substantive does not refer to the cost of the response. Substantive means that it addresses the substance of the complaint.

The "high four figures" you spent for a lawyer to respond (I disagree with the word "defend") to a legal threat was unnecessary. You paid a bunch of money for some low-paid legal assistants to fill out a template, and then a high-paid solicitor to sign off on it.

As an individual, you can respond substantively to a legal threat for free. And even if you choose not to respond, courts are not punitive, the standard that courts hold individuals to are different to the standards they hold law firms to. A court will not rule in a claimant's favour in a libel case because an individual didn't follow procedure correctly.

If you, as an individual, make a truthful statement about A Big Corporation and A Big Corporation spends £100,000 on a team of lawyers to write an angry letter to you demanding you retract, a simple single-sentence self-composed response of "The statement is true, I will not retract." is substantive.

Despite what catastrophisers like yourself (catastrophisers who are encouraged by participants in the legal system who profit from this misapprehension) might suggest, civil courts are interested in adjudicating fairness, not trapping individuals in an endless legal quagmire.

Can you share examples of individuals who have been sanctioned by the U.K. courts for anything that comes close to not engaging in the Pre-Action Protocol?

[krageon]

Bandwidth isn't free to a cloud hosting provider in any real sense of the word. It's not priced in relation to cost, but it definitely does cost