UAE Social Media Defamation Compensation: The New Civil Law and Reported Awards

Article 246 states the general rule: "Every act causing harm to another shall obligate its perpetrator to compensate for the damage, even if the perpetrator lacks discernment." Article 254(1) brings reputation within it: "Liability shall include moral harm. An infringement on another's freedom, honor, reputation, social standing, or financial status shall constitute moral harm."

A defamatory post can cause two kinds of harm the law counts. There is moral harm to honour, reputation and standing, which Article 254(1) names. There can also be money lost, such as customers or contracts that went after the post, which Article 255 brings into the assessment through the loss suffered and the loss of profit. In the reported cases below, both companies and individuals recovered compensation.

Article 246 does not make compensation depend on a criminal conviction. In each reported case below, though, the civil award followed one. The criminal offences behind these claims are set out in the guide to defamation in UAE law, and the guide to truth and defamation in the UAE explains why proving a post true does not settle the matter.

The official UAE Legislation portal lists the new law as active: issued on 1 October 2025, published in Official Gazette No. 809 on 14 October 2025, and effective from 1 June 2026. It replaced Federal Law No. 5 of 1985, the Civil Transactions Law that many online guides on defamation damages still cite.

Two cautions follow. First, do not carry article numbers across: the new law has its own numbering, and its moral-harm provision is Article 254. Second, we have not confirmed the new law's transitional rule, which decides which law governs a harmful act committed before 1 June 2026. If the post went up before that date, ask your UAE lawyer which law applies before relying on any article number.

Article 255 ties the amount to two things: the loss suffered and the loss of profit. For an individual, the loss suffered may be mostly moral: the injury to honour, reputation and standing that Article 254(1) recognises. For a business, it may include money that can be counted: customers who left, orders cancelled, a contract lost, a fall in enquiries after the post. The more of it you can show with documents, the more the court has to assess.

Article 253(2) works the other way. Compensation may be reduced or refused if the injured party contributed to or aggravated the harm. Think about that before you answer a post with posts of your own, share it further to rally support, or keep a dispute running in public.

The criminal case does not set the figure. Article 245(2) says civil liability does not prejudice criminal liability, and "the penalty shall have no effect on determining the scope of civil liability and assessing the compensation". A criminal fine is a penalty, not compensation. One of the reports below ran under a headline saying a man was fined, although the article describes civil compensation.

The table records what newspapers reported. These are news reports of court rulings, not citable precedent. The newspapers give the court and the amounts but no case numbers, and we have not read the judgments themselves. Only reports of rulings by a named court are listed, not awareness stories or illustrative examples. The guide to negative Google reviews and UAE law looks at the Google review report from both sides.

Three patterns are visible. Every award followed a criminal conviction. Every award was between a third and a half of the amount claimed. And in one case the court went beyond money, ordering an apology and a denial on the account where the video had been posted.

What the reports do not show matters as much. They set no tariff: under the new law, each claim is assessed on its own loss under Article 255. They are not citable precedent. All four were reported before 1 June 2026, so the rulings came before the new Civil Transactions Law was in force. And four reports from courts in Al Ain and Abu Dhabi say nothing about how courts elsewhere in the UAE assess these claims.

For a claimant whose concern is the record rather than the money, this can matter most, because a correction posted where the original appeared reaches the people who saw it. Before the new law came into force, a court made an order of this kind: as reported by Gulf News, the Al Ain Court for Civil, Commercial and Administrative Claims ordered "an apology and a clear denial of the allegations via the same Snapchat account", alongside AED 100,000 in compensation, and the criminal court had earlier ordered the video deleted.

Article 256(2) works at the injured party's request, so ask for the specific act, such as a correction on the same account, in the claim itself. Your UAE lawyer frames the request.

Removal from the platform is a separate track. On conviction, the criminal court may order the violating site closed or blocked, completely or partially, under Article 59 of Federal Decree-Law No. 34 of 2021 on Countering Rumours and Cybercrimes. A UAE access blocking order disables access in the UAE only, and the content stays online elsewhere. Removal at the source runs through the platform's own policies or the publisher, and Google's legal-removal process deals with search results.

The employer rule sits in the new law's chapter on the harmful act: "A principal shall be liable for the harm resulting from a harmful act committed by their subordinate, when it is committed by them in the performance of their duty or because of it." It is quoted here by its words rather than its article number, which we have not confirmed.

The rule matters on both sides. A business harmed by posts that another firm's staff made in the course of their work may have a claim against that firm as well as the staff; in the Snapchat report above, the award was made against a phone retailer's employees and the retailer. A business that runs its own accounts should control who can post and what, because a member of staff who insults a customer or attributes misconduct to another business on a company account, as part of their work, can expose the company to a claim.

Article 258 adds a rule for claims that arise from a crime: where the crime is still prosecutable, time runs from the end of the criminal action. That fits the order of events in the reported cases, where the civil claim followed the criminal one.

The criminal clock is shorter and comes first. A complaint for insult and slander is not admitted after three months from when the victim becomes aware of the crime and its perpetrator (Article 11 of the Criminal Procedures Law, Federal Decree-Law No. 38 of 2022). Take advice within three months of learning of the post and who made it. We have not found a primary text settling whether that limit also governs the online offence in Article 43 of the Cybercrime Decree-Law, so treat three months as the working deadline. For the complaint itself, see how to file a defamation case in Dubai.

The UAE has a federal judiciary and local judiciaries. Sharjah, Ajman, Fujairah and Umm Al Quwain use the federal courts; the Abu Dhabi Judicial Department, Dubai Courts and the Ras Al Khaimah Courts are independent local judicial departments. Each system has a Court of First Instance and a Court of Appeal, with the Federal Supreme Court or a Court of Cassation above them.

Arabic is the official language of the onshore courts under Article 5(1) of the Civil Procedure Code, Federal Decree-Law No. 42 of 2022, and non-Arabic speakers are heard through a sworn interpreter. Plan for Arabic translations of the evidence you rely on.

The DIFC Courts hear civil and commercial matters only, in English: cases arising out of the DIFC and its operations, and claims the parties agree in writing to bring there. The ADGM Courts are an opt-in jurisdiction: parties with no connection to ADGM can agree in writing, before or after a dispute, to have their civil or commercial claims decided there. Without that connection or a written agreement, the claim belongs to the onshore courts.

The rule is Article 6(2) of Federal Decree-Law No. 34 of 2022 Regulating the Legal Profession and Legal Consultation Profession. Being a national citizen is the first condition for entry on the Roll (Article 13(1)), and a non-national lawyer may be licensed only in limited cases, before designated specialised circuits (Article 10). Under the same law, a legal consultant's work does not include pleading or representation before the courts.

RepuLex is an online reputation management agency, not a law firm, and holds no UAE licence. It does not sue, file or appear in the UAE. It works alongside the UAE counsel you instruct, on the evidence and on removal at the platforms.

Collect these, and keep the originals unaltered:

The legal route and the removal route run in parallel. Your UAE lawyer advises on the complaint, any settlement and the civil claim. RepuLex works on the platforms and search: policy reports to Google, Meta, X, YouTube, TikTok, Telegram, Reddit and review sites, Google's own legal-removal and personal-information routes, and monitoring for reposts. A platform decides under its own policies, and removing a result from Google Search does not remove the page from the internet.

The removal audit is a sensible first step before deciding on a claim: it shows which links are removable, by which route, and which are not. RepuLex works on published fixed fees per URL, paid in advance and refunded in full for any URL not removed within its agreed timeline, provided the documents and authority requested for that URL are supplied. See online reputation management in the UAE for how the work is organised, and, for clients in Abu Dhabi and Al Ain, where the courts in all four reports sit, online reputation management in Abu Dhabi.