2016 February 8

Loto-Quebec c. Poker Trail Management Inc., 2016 QCCS 474

The Quebec Superior Court awarded $30,000 compensatory damages and $20,000 punitive damages to the plaintiff over false and defamatory accusations on the website of the defendant corporation including a video message which was also sent by email to 40,000 members of Poker Trail. The defendants also created a number of Internet sites starting in 2014, a Twitter page, and a Facebook page which were hyperlinked to each other. The defendants also published a number of articles on another publicly-accessible website and an open public letter on yet another website which contained defamatory allegations. The Court noted, among other things, that Twitter was even a more rapid way of disseminating defamatory accusations than regular websites or Facebook.