Dear all,
Until last year, I used to work at a small UK fund. However, working conditions were absolutely horrendous, primarily because of the way the owner of the firm behaved – shout at, swearing at, intimidating, and bullying employees was a sad but regular occurrence. Temper outbreaks happened often. Further to that, work-life balance was non-existent (I did 24h days on the desk countless many times), and taking days off was always a battle & highly frowned upon (along the lines of “you are young, you don't need holidays” or “taking holidays shows that you are not dedicated to the firm”). Job perks or benefits were non-existent.
Quite frankly, the time at the firm was absolutely miserable & I always told myself how if I knew how horrendous the job conditions were, I would have never even started the job.
This is exactly why after I finally decided to leave the job, I (naively) wanted to make sure that other young applicants don't make the same mistake & know what they are letting themselves in for. Why should that bully of a boss always be able to get away with his disgusting behaviour?
Hence, I recently decided one evening to make a dedicated website where I provide a frank & honest review of the work experience at the firm (www.2rcapitalim.co.uk).
Trying to be smart, I bought a domain that is almost identical to the firm's actual URL (which ends in .com instead of .co.uk).
However, I heard from someone at the firm that they found out about the website because certain job applicants decided to not accept offers (citing the content of the website as the reason).
From the IP addresses that have visited the website today, I saw that a law firm has been on it…
I am now very worried that the firm is taking legal action – for two reasons: i) defamation (even though everything I have written is 100% true, could it be deemed defamatory?) ii) trademark infringement (unfortunately, the company name is a registered trademark).
My question is frankly: in how much shit am I likely to be? What is my best course of action now?
I am quite worried, but any thoughts & advice would be very much appreciated….
Thanks in advance!!