Practitioners in defamation should note that the statutory cap in s 35(1) of the Defamation Act 2005 can be exceeded whenever aggravated damages are warranted, without requiring separate quantification of the aggravated component. Claims for economic loss in defamation require rigorous proof of both the existence of the opportunity and causation, and Andrews damages for general decline in business are only available where there are inherent difficulties in proof analogous to those in Ratcliffe v Evans.
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