Even if companies can allege that a competitor faked online profiles to write negative reviews and give low ratings to products, they still need to put forward some specific facts about the economic relationships that were disrupted to get claims to stick against them in a business defamation lawsuit.

That, in essence, is what U.S. Magistrate Judge Nathanael Cousins of the Northern District of California ruled in a dispute where cloud-based communications service RingCentral has accused its rival Nextiva of spreading fake reviews online about its service. 

Cousins in a 10-page order handed down Feb. 28 found that RingCentral's claims for interference with prospective economic advantage fell short since the company hadn't alleged any specific customer relationship with which Nextiva's alleged actions interfered. 

"General allegations regarding prospective or future customers are insufficient because they fail to adequately suggest that those relationships contain a probability of future economic benefits," Cousins wrote. "The tort of intentional interference with prospective economic advantage is not intended to address speculative 'missed opportunities,'" the judge added.

Cousins further found that RingCentral's trade libel claims fell flat since the company failed to identify any false statements of fact and instead pointed to lists of fake websites and domain names that allegedly posted false reviews. The judge also dismissed RingCentral's trademark and cybersquatting claims related to a domain using a misspelling of RingCentral's name, finding that the company hadn't plausibly alleged that its rival was responsible for the domain's registration. Cousins also dismissed claims brought under the "unlawful" prong of California's unfair competition law since he found no underlying violation of the law, and he dismissed claims under the UCL's "unfair" prong since RingCentral's claims related to harm to itself rather than competition more broadly.

The judge, however, granted Nextiva's motion to dismiss with leave to amend finding that RingCentral's complaint "could conceivably be cured."

David Bloch of Greenberg Traurig, who represents RingCentral, was at trial Monday and not immediately reachable. Nextiva has been represented in the suit by counsel from Perkins Coie. Perkins Coie's Donald Kula didn't immediately respond to a message seeking comment Monday.

RingCentral originally filed suit in May 2019 against a group of John Doe defendants, the registrants of 19 domain names the company claimed were masquerading as legitimate businesses and using emails associated with those domain names to post false and defamatory reviews of the company's services. After getting expedited discovery to uncover the names of the defendants, RingCentral amended its complaint in November to name Nextiva and UnitedWeb, whom it claimed was Nextiva's parent company.

Cousins on Feb. 28 found that UnitedWeb is not a shareholder in Nextiva according to documents provided by the defense. However, the judge found that the amended complaint had "some facts suggesting that UnitedWeb could be held liable for Nextiva's actions" and, therefore, gave RingCentral leave to amend its claims against UnitedWeb.