Hi Everyone,

I am having a dispute with a company in Portugal and I need to find out where I stand legally.

Just over a year ago, I sought out the services of an addiction clinic in Spain called Iboga Tree Healing House, that treats addiction using a powerful anti addiction drug called ibogaine, but had a terrible experience there and was treated very badly by the owners who it later transpired had no real experience or expertise in working with ibogaine. I was planning on taking legal action against them in order to get my money back, but I left them scathing reviews all over the internet which ruined their reputation so badly that they ended up selling the business. However, it was bought by another ibogaine practitioner who I do know as we are both members of the same ibogaine discussion forums, and who was indeed aware of the unresolved dispute that I had with them because I've had conversations with him about it through facebook beforehand, and he was also completely aware that I was threatening legal action against Iboga Tree before buying it because I had stated it very clearly in the reviews I'd left.

However, recently, the new owner had the barefaced cheek to send me a facebook message asking me to remove the negative reviews I'd left because it was damaging his business, and this was without offering me anything to compensate for the horrendous treatment I was subjected to. When I challenged him on this, he told me that he is not liable for anything the previous owners did because he simply bought the domain name and the trademark name, and not the actual organisation whose services I paid for. I'm prepared to bet he is lying through his teeth because when I challenged him about it, he became childishly defensive and when I hinted that I would be looking into it further, he did everything he could to persuade me to let it go and move on. He is currently running Iboga Tree Healing house in the identical way it was run by the previous owners. It has the identical name, the identical website design, domain name & email address, the identical logo and offering the identical services to the ones I paid for when I had my treatment, yet he is claiming that he is not responsible for anything that happened before. This is despite the fact that in buying the business off the previous owners, he has taken away any legal comeback I have with them.

If anyone could please give me some advice on how I go about finding out where I stand legally on this I would be extremely grateful.

Is the company a limited company (where by buying it the change in shareholder doesn’t affect the limited company’s liability), a partnership, or a sole trader where he can argue any liability lies with the previous owner?

Mind you, if he is saying that he doesn’t owe you anything the previous company owed you, you can agree and point out that any comments refer to the old company and reflect this by the date of the comment .... and you then have no obligation to correct them (just don’t make any new critical comments!)

I don't know what sort of company it is so I can't say. The problem is that I don't know how to find out the company ownership details. I understand that I can get that information about UK companies from companies house, but I don't know how to do so for international companies.

Is the company a limited company (where by buying it the change in shareholder doesn’t affect the limited company’s liability), a partnership, or a sole trader where he can argue any liability lies with the previous owner?

 

Mind you, if he is saying that he doesn’t owe you anything the previous company owed you, you can agree and point out that any comments refer to the old company and reflect this by the date of the comment .... and you then have no obligation to correct them (just don’t make any new critical comments!)