SINGAPORE — Two eateries claiming to have been the target of a campaign of negative reviews allegedly from a competitor have sent the suspected perpetrator letters of demand to seek compensation for defamation.
Mentai-ya Japanese Cuisine, and The Social Outcast, a restaurant located at Turf Club, are each seeking $70,000 and $50,000 respectively in damages from Ishiro, a Japanese eatery.
Speaking to Yahoo News Singapore on Friday (17 September), the owners of Mentai-ya and The Social Outcast confirmed that they sent such letters to Ishiro on 15 September and 16 September. They are asking for compensation for what they describe as “significant damage” to their business reputation and for “emotional and mental distress”.
The letters of demand were sent by a team of lawyers – led by lawyer Clarence Lun – from Fervent Law Chambers which was engaged by the two eateries last week. Both letters, seen by Yahoo News Singapore, state that Ishiro had caused and/or allowed employees, including a Wen Bin and/or Deon Goh, to publish false and defamatory comments and reviews against the eateries through multiple accounts on Facebook and Google, which allegedly were set up using pseudonyms.
According to Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority records, Goh is the director of OSEAS, the company that operates Ishiro.
Accounts from Mentai-ya and The Social Outcast
Mentai-ya’s owner, 34-year-old Khoo Keat Hwee said in a phone interview that its three outlets began getting one-star reviews on Google from May this year. While the eatery ignored the reviews at first, they soon accumulated, said Khoo. The poor reviews prompted him to apologise in a video uploaded on Mentai-ya’s Facebook at the end of June.
But the bad ratings kept coming. “Every few days… every morning I wake up, oh another one-star review," Khoo said. Eventually he realised that the reviews came from a group of eight to nine users – the same users who gave five-star reviews to Ichiro. This made Khoo suspicious.
The reviews, along with other incidents, said Khoo, prompted him to investigate. He claimed to have found evidence that implicated Ishiro. Khoo has made two police reports related to the matter.
Another eatery discovered link through Mentai-ya
He added that he discovered that other eateries, including The Social Outcast, which formerly had a hawker stall in Bedok Marketplace beside an Ishiro outlet, were also targets.
The Social Outcast’s owner, 41-year-old Aminurrashid Hasnordin, told Yahoo News Singapore in a phone interview that he had learned of Ishiro’s alleged involvement through Mentai-ya only recently.
For him, it started as a racial slur in the comments of a video featuring The Social Outcast on Facebook, posted in December last year, before the same person began to post bad reviews on The Social Outcast’s website and Facebook page.
Due to business reasons unrelated to the alleged defamation, Aminurrashid decided to close the stall at Bedok Marketplace in May this year. He reopened The Social Outcast as a restaurant at Turf Club on 14 September. He learned about Ishiro's alleged involvement at about the same time.
After Khoo published his investigation findings in a video on his Facebook page, Ishiro responded in a post on its Instagram account on 8 September, attributing the reviews to one of its employees who had dined at Mentai-ya. The post has since been removed.
On 9 September, Ishiro posted an apology to “Mentai-ya and all businesses” on its Facebook page for the “harm these unfortunate events have caused”. It also apologised for its initial statement and added that it had no intention to defame competitors, doubling down on its claim that the employee had acted of his or her own accord.
“Ishiro assumes full responsibility for our actions and we apologise for the unfortunate sequence of events that have affected our fellow counterparts in the community,” the statement added.
Meanwhile, the bad reviews continued.
Motivations behind sending letters of demand
In addition to the sums demanded, both Mentai-ya and The Social Outcast asked for all the negative reviews to be removed and a public apology to be posted on Ishiro's Facebook page for four weeks and an undertaking from Ishiro not to publish further such statements.
Asked why he decided on such a formal move, Khoo said the eatery’s sales had dropped by as much as 15 to 20 per cent from June to August.
As for Aminurrashid, he wants to put a stop to the alleged harassment and send a message that harassers will not be able to hide behind their keyboards.
Ishiro has also engaged legal representation
In response to queries by Yahoo News Singapore, Ishiro confirmed that it had received the letters.
Yahoo News Singapore contacted a person who identified himself as Ishiro’s listed owner, Deon Goh. Goh said that he has engaged a lawyer and “would be responding to the letter”.
Asked what Ishiro meant by “taking full responsibility for its actions” on its Facebook post, Goh did not reply.
Should Ishiro not comply with the demands within seven days, the two eateries say they intend to initiate court proceedings.
Restaurants in court battle: The Social Outcast sues Ishiro for S$200,000 over alleged racist, derogatory comments
SINGAPORE — A food-and-beverage (F&B) establishment, The Social Outcast, on Monday (Aug 8) took food company Oseas Pte Ltd to court for publishing what it described as “racist, derogatory and baseless” negative comments and reviews on various public platforms.
The Social Outcast, a Muslim-owned restaurant operating since 2019, is seeking S$150,000 in damages and another S$50,000 in aggravated damages from the defendant, which operates under the name Ishiro.
The defendant has countersued for S$63,000 in damages over defamation.
The Social Outcast serves smoked and charcoal grilled meat, while Ishiro serves Japanese fusion rice bowls. During the alleged incidents, both parties were operating at Bedok Marketplace, in close proximity with each other.
THE CASE
The Social Outcast claimed that Mr Chua Wen Bin, employed by Ishiro as a manager at the time, had “published and/or caused to be published racist, derogatory and baseless negative comments and reviews” against other F&B establishments, including The Social Outcast.
These comments were purportedly posted under a Facebook account that was renamed on several occasions.
Among others, the posts published in December 2020 said that The Social Outcast had charged customers for free sauces, called the shop’s co-owner Noelle Chua “fake” and described the food negatively.
Some posts also used allegedly derogatory terms on the co-owner, Mr Aminurrashid Hasnordin, and the Malay community.
Mr Aminurrashid is also Ms Chua's husband.
In January last year, The Social Outcast received two large orders on delivery portal GrabFood, which put the eatery's address as the recipient's address and chose "cash on delivery" as the payment method.
The Social Outcast did not realise that the recipient's address was its own and proceeded to prepare the order. It realised that it was a prank when the delivery rider took the food back to the stall.
When the prank happened a second time, the stall was more alert and did not act on the order.
The Social Outcast said that it checked with Grab and found that both orders were made through Mr Chua’s mobile number.
The stall said that another F&B establishment, Mentai-Ya, which was one of the alleged recipients of Mr Chua’s negative reviews, had posted a video on Facebook uncovering Ishiro's actions.
After the video went public, Ishiro posted two sets of apologies on its social media channel — first on Sept 8, which was later removed, followed by another the next day.
The Social Outcast highlighted portions of the apology that supposedly showed Ishiro assuming full responsibility for Mr Chua’s actions.
In its opening statement, the plaintiff argued that the defendant was vicariously liable for the posts made by Mr Chua.
Vicarious liability refers to a situation where one party is made responsible over the unlawful act of another party, such as an employer being held responsible for the actions of an employee.
Ishiro, on the other hand, asserted that The Social Outcast had never argued vicarious liability except in its opening statement, and instead had named Ishiro as the direct defendant throughout its arguments.
Ishiro also argued that the matters had arisen out of a personal spat between Mr Aminurrashid and Mr Chua, but The Social Outcast dragged Mr Chua's employers “through the mud for the personal remarks made by Mr Chua”.
It further argued that The Social Outcast had disseminated a letter of demand to various media outlets to get attention, causing Ishiro to “endure incessant public abuse and vitriol” as well as suffering damage to its reputation and earnings.
This formed the basis of the defendant's counterclaims for S$63,000.
DEFAMATORY NATURE OF POSTS CONTESTED
Ms Chua of The Social Outcast took the stand as the plaintiff’s first witness on Monday.
During cross-examination, which lasted for more than six hours, Ishiro's counsel led by Mr Wilbur Lim of WMH Law Corporation questioned Ms Chua’s interpretation of certain parts of the comments in question and how they could be seen as defamatory to The Social Outcast.
For example, Mr Lim asked how Ms Chua’s “fake smile” and lack of knowledge of food, as written in the comments, would deter customers from The Social Outcast when she mainly manned the cashier counter while the husband was the chef at the time.
Ms Chua asserted that her sincerity and knowledge of the food that they served formed “intangible” parts of service, which makes up a part of an F&B establishment’s offerings.
During various parts of the trial, Ms Chua also made impassioned statements about how the comments affected her “dignity as a woman”.
Other questions raised revolved around why Ms Chua, in social media posts, had identified individuals as being behind the negative reviews but The Social Outcast's letter of demand had named Ishiro as being responsible for the reviews instead.
The trial is set to continue with Mr Aminurrashid, Mr Chua and Ishiro's owner Deon Goh Li Qun set to take the stand.
https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/restaurants-court-battle-social-outcast-sues-ishiro-s200000-over-alleged-racist-derogatory-comments-1964756
Jin juicy saga woh!
Eat-shit-ro's food must be damn shitty for its owner to have to resort to such underhanded means. Boycott the motherfucking eatery!
If Deon Goh and his minions really did what they did, then they must be sued until their pants drop!
Talk is cheap, I too am curious with regards to how Ishiro intends to assume full responsibility for its shameful misdeeds.
Conveniently pinning all the blame on an "employee" and hoping everything will just go away? This Deon Goh is more stupid than I thought.