When assessing damages for defamation of a corporation, the court must not subtract or deduct for justified parts of the publication but must put them entirely out of mind. A corporate plaintiff need only prove the defamatory imputations were a cause, not the sole cause, of its loss. Evidence of financial loss (such as deferred price increases and lost sales) may be led not as special damages but as the background against which general damages for loss of trading reputation are assessed. The Polly Peck defence (defendant pleading and justifying alternative imputations) remains an open question in South Australia.
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