The blogger has posted a large amount of inaccurate information over a long period of time, defaming and insulting BYD and causing serious damage to the company's brand reputation, BYD's legal department said in its only Weibo post to date.
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BYD (OTCMKTS: BYDDY) is suing an auto blogger for reputation infringement, becoming the latest Chinese new energy vehicle (NEV) maker to do so.
Weibo user @龙猪-集车 (Longzhu-Jiche) has posted a large amount of inaccurate information over a long period of time, maliciously defaming and insulting BYD, causing serious damage to the company's brand reputation, BYD's legal department said in a statement posted on Weibo today.
BYD has collected and fixed a large amount of evidence and has decided to formally sue the blogger, demanding that he remove the infringing remarks, publicly apologize and pay compensation of RMB 5 million yuan ($700,000), the statement said.
BYD accepts suggestions and public opinion supervision from all walks of life, and at the same time, will defend its legitimate rights and interests against malicious attacks and smearing behavior, it said.
Notably, this is the first and so far only blog post from BYD's legal department Weibo account.
Longzhu is a prolific auto reviewer, posting numerous reviews of both traditional fuel vehicles and NEVs over the past several years.
Just yesterday, the blogger posted a review of the D9 MPV from BYD's premium Denza brand on video site Bilibili.
Over the past few months, the blogger, who has 830,000 followers on Weibo, has been intensively posting content about BYD's vehicle failures and fires, claiming that they came from readers' tips.
Notably, the blogger has not posted a Weibo update since April 26, and the status of his Weibo account shows that he is under a ban for violating laws and regulations.
BYD is the latest Chinese NEV company to take legal action against negative information.
Just this past weekend, Nio's legal department announced that a man apologized and paid damages for posting tens of thousands of insults against it in the past year.
($1 = RMB 7.1936)
Man apologizes and pays damages for posting tens of thousands of insults against Nio
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