The relationship between the right to business reputation of legal entites and freedom of expression

Marinac Nina (Pravni fakultet Univerziteta u Beogradu), marinacsnina@gmail.com

The paper analyses the relationship between the right to business reputation of legal entities and freedom of expression. The author starts with the thesis that the right to business reputation is guaranteed by European and Serbian legal regulations. However, its definition, scope, and legal protection are insufficiently precise. The qualitative analysis used a descriptive method to present the normative framework set by the European Convention on Human Rights and the case law of the European Court of Human Rights. The same method was used in presenting legislative and practical solutions in the Republic of Serbia to highlight the legal shortcomings of the existing system and find specific solutions. The paper concludes that the right to business reputation of legal entities is directly determined and defined by freedom of expression and that the existing European system and the system of the Republic of Serbia do not correspond to the current circumstances in which legal entities have an increasingly strong capacity for economic power, embodied in their business reputation. At the same time, the conclusion is that these entities are not allowed to adequately protect their business reputation. A turning point in the recent approach of the European system is considering the right to business reputation as property owned by the entity, which is an innovative but insufficiently developed solution. The author of the paper supports a solution that implies that legal entities, in addition to compensation for material damage, the proof of which in practice often becomes probatio diabolica, have the right to compensation for non-material damage modelled on the honour and reputation of natural persons and their protection from damaging information because he believes that such a solution meets modern challenges and confronts the practical problems of the existing system.

Keywords: business reputation, freedom of expression, European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights, European Court of Human Rights, SLAPP lawsuits, Serbia.