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Having been involved on the periphery of a major criminal case which started off as a defamation case (there being no libel in Scotland) I can assure you that that is not the case. Scottish Defamation and English Libel are quite different laws. A number of people have made good money from arbitraging the difference.


I understand that it's defamation (which combines both libel and slander) but what other differences are there?


According to this BBC article about the Tommy Sheridan case :

"In Scotland, only compensatory damages are allowed. Punitive damages are not competent."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/5246716.stm

There are a lot of differences between English and Scots law - the most obvious being the extra verdict of "not proven" in criminal cases.


I know there are a lot of differences (I'm English and live in Scotland), just my understanding of libel / defamation is that broadly the nature of rulings was similar - essentially that Scotland's system while slightly different wasn't that much better than the English system.


As far as I understand it, the "no punitive damages" is a huge difference.




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