Online reviews give customers a voice, businesses a reputation, and occasionally lawyers something to do. Luxembourg law protects criticism, but there is a difference between describing a disappointing experience and publishing an accusation you cannot support.
Reading other people's negative reviews can be an unexpectedly absorbing activity. You begin by checking whether a restaurant takes reservations and emerge 20 minutes later with a detailed understanding of a stranger's anniversary dinner.
The waiter was dismissive, the steak was overcooked, and the owner has replied at considerable length to explain why the customer was disappointing too.
Part of the appeal is that the stakes initially seem so manageable. Nobody is asking you to resolve the dispute.
You can quietly decide that both parties sound exhausting and book somewhere else.
Writing a review yourself is different. Perhaps you were charged twice, a repair made things worse, or a company stopped answering once it had your money.
A private complaint achieved very little, so you explain the problem publicly. Somewhere in the editing, 'the bill was wrong' becomes 'they cheat their customers'. It feels like a more forceful version of the same complaint.
Legally, it may be a different allegation altogether.
So, can a negative review get you sued in Luxembourg? Yes. A review can lead to a civil claim or, where the conditions of an offence are met, criminal proceedings.
But a business' displeasure does not establish that the reviewer has broken the law. Customers are entitled to criticise, and protecting a reputation does not mean protecting someone from every unfavourable opinion.
Imagine that a restaurant charges you for two coffees when you ordered one. You can describe the duplicate charge, explain whether you raised it, and say how the restaurant responded.
Those details tell readers what happened. Calling the owner a thief adds something else: you are suggesting deliberate dishonesty rather than reporting a mistake.
Article 443 of Luxembourg's Criminal Code addresses malicious allegations of a specific fact capable of damaging someone's honour or exposing them to public contempt. It distinguishes between calomnie and diffamation according to whether the law permits proof of the allegation and whether the legally required proof is produced.
The terminology is technical, but neither offence simply means that somebody has written something unflattering.
Luxembourg case law requires an identifiable target, a sufficiently precise allegation, the required circumstances of communication, and malicious intent.
The courts have stressed that a specific intention to harm is not presumed merely because someone knowingly made a damaging statement. An honest attempt to explain an experience and a personal campaign to ruin someone are therefore different things, even if neither produces a particularly favourable review.
The practical question is whether your words go further than your evidence. A receipt may establish the extra coffee, but it is unlikely to establish what was happening in the owner's head.
Equally, a company's failure to answer your emails does not, by itself, establish that it took your money intending never to perform the work.
That does not require customers to write with unnatural politeness. It requires them to distinguish what happened from the explanation they have given themselves for it, usually after the fourth unanswered message.
Courts distinguish factual allegations from value judgements.
Whether you were charged €20 for something is a question of fact. Whether it was worth €20 involves an assessment, possibly influenced by how hungry you were and what Luxembourg has already taught you to expect from a lunch bill.
The distinction matters under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects freedom of expression. Opinions cannot be proved in the same way as facts.
Nevertheless, context matters, and a value judgement may still need a sufficient factual basis.
'I found the service dismissive' expresses an assessment of your experience. 'In my opinion, the owner deliberately overcharges foreigners' alleges a practice that could be investigated and disputed.
Adding 'in my opinion' does not remove the accusation that follows it. The phrase has acquired a rather ambitious reputation for legal protection that it cannot deliver on its own.
Nor does replacing an accusation with abuse necessarily improve matters. Article 448 of the Criminal Code separately addresses injure, including written insults communicated in the circumstances specified by law.
A comment can therefore create legal difficulties even without a precise allegation of wrongdoing.
For readers, concrete details are usually more useful anyway. Unanswered emails, unfinished work, and a refusal to correct a duplicate charge explain why you were unhappy.
An assessment of the owner's entire personality is harder to substantiate and tells a prospective customer considerably less.
Keeping receipts, photographs, booking confirmations, and correspondence is sensible. If your account is challenged, the difference between remembering something clearly and being able to establish it may become important.
However, Luxembourg law is more complicated than the familiar reassurance that anything true is safe to publish.
Article 447 places particular restrictions on proof of allegations concerning private life. Article 449 also provides for 'divulgation méchante': a narrow offence involving an allegation for which legal proof exists, made solely to harm and without any public or private interest justifying it.
This is a reason to keep the review connected to the transaction.
A disagreement over a repair does not require readers to know about the mechanic's divorce. Information does not become relevant to customer service merely because you discovered it while becoming increasingly annoyed.
Moving the discussion to a smaller audience is not automatically a solution either. Article 444 covers certain written communications to several people even when they have not been made public.
A closed Facebook or WhatsApp group should therefore not be treated as beyond the law simply because membership requires an invitation.
Alongside criminal law, a business may seek compensation under the Civil Code's general liability rules. A successful claim ordinarily requires proof of fault, damage, and a causal connection between them.
Liability can involve negligence or carelessness; the specific malicious intent required for calomnie or diffamation is not a universal requirement for a civil claim.
Losing customers after a review does not, by itself, establish that the reviewer committed a fault. Accurate criticism may affect someone's choice precisely because it tells them something useful.
A business cannot establish a right to compensation simply by pointing out that the review was bad for business.
Nevertheless, a lawyer's letter can make an ordinary complaint feel suddenly unaffordable.
Preserve the review as published, the demand, and your supporting documents. Ask which statements are disputed and why. Correct factual mistakes, but assess a demand to remove the entire review on its merits.
If proceedings are threatened, seek advice on the actual wording and circumstances, and respond promptly to formal court papers. Luxembourg's courts list free legal-information services, including sessions provided by lawyers.
Before publishing, it also helps to read the review as somebody who was not there.
Can that person distinguish what you observed from what you suspect? Have you included the company's response if it changes the picture? Are you explaining your experience or claiming to know everybody else's?
A careful review can still be sharp, funny, and thoroughly unfavourable. Often, the details make it more persuasive.
An extra coffee, an unanswered request, and a refusal to correct the bill give readers something to assess. They do not need to be told what sort of person the owner must be.
You do not have to pretend you enjoyed dinner. Just make sure the review describes the evening you had, rather than the motives you assigned to everyone on the way home.
