By Jouslin Khairallah, Founder & Managing Director — licensed before all UAE courts including the Federal Supreme Court.
Every week, somewhere in the UAE, the same collision happens: a customer leaves a one-star review describing a bad experience, and the business responds with a legal threat — or an actual criminal complaint. One side believes they are exercising a basic right to share an honest opinion. The other believes their reputation has been unlawfully attacked. Both sides are sometimes right — and the difference between the two is one of the most misunderstood areas of UAE law.
Having handled these files from both directions — defending review writers facing complaints, and acting for businesses genuinely damaged by fabricated attacks — this guide explains where the law actually draws the line.
The Starting Point: Defamation Is a Crime in the UAE
Unlike many jurisdictions where defamation is purely a civil matter, in the UAE it is first and foremost a criminal offence. Two laws matter:
- The Penal Code — Federal Decree-Law No. 31 of 2021 (Crimes and Penalties Law), as amended. Its chapter on defamatory crimes, Articles 425 to 434, criminalises publicly attributing to a person a fact that would expose them to punishment or to the contempt of others, and separately criminalises insult — abusive expression that offends honour or dignity without attributing any specific fact. Those provisions have stood unchanged since the Law came into force on 2 January 2022; the amendments made to the Code since then reached other parts of it entirely.
- The Cybercrimes Law — Federal Decree-Law No. 34 of 2021 on Countering Rumours and Cybercrimes, as amended by Federal Law No. 5 of 2024. Where the defamation or insult travels through an information network — a Google review, a social-media post, a WhatsApp broadcast — Article 43 of that Law applies: imprisonment, a fine of AED 250,000 to AED 500,000, or both, with the targeting of a public official or a person entrusted with a public service treated as an aggravating circumstance. Article 43 is also unchanged since 2 January 2022; the 2024 amendment reached a single unrelated article on terrorist propaganda. Article 72 preserves any more severe penalty available under the Penal Code, so the two regimes run alongside each other rather than one displacing the other. For non-citizens, deportation is a possible further consequence, at the court’s discretion rather than as an automatic result.
A Google review is “publication through an information network” in the fullest sense. Whatever you write there, you are publishing to the world.
What the Law Protects: Genuine Opinion About a Genuine Experience
Nothing in UAE law prohibits honest, critical feedback. A review that says:
- “I waited forty minutes past my appointment time” — a fact you experienced;
- “The price was higher than I expected for what I received” — your evaluation;
- “I would not come back” — your conclusion;
is the ordinary exercise of a consumer’s voice. Courts and prosecutors distinguish between criticism of a service and an attack on a person. Describing your own experience, evaluating it, and recommending or not recommending the business — expressed in measured language — is not what the defamation provisions were written to punish.
The practical tests that keep a review on the safe side:
- You were actually a customer. A genuine transaction or interaction underlies everything.
- You describe your own experience — not rumours, not what “everyone says,” not what you assume happened to others.
- The facts you state are true and provable — dates, amounts, what was said and done.
- Your language criticises the service, not the person’s honour — no insults, no profanity, no mockery of individuals, no accusations of character.
- You state opinions as opinions — “I felt the advice was rushed” rather than presenting conclusions as established facts.
What the Law Punishes: False Facts and Insults Dressed as Reviews
The protection ends where honest opinion ends. A review crosses into criminal territory when it:
- States false facts. Writing that a business “stole my money,” “forged documents,” or “cheats its customers” when no such thing happened is not opinion — it is the attribution of specific dishonourable or criminal conduct. This is the heart of criminal defamation, and the falsity of the claim makes it indefensible.
- Accuses someone of a crime. Alleging fraud, theft, or corruption in a public review is an accusation the law treats with particular severity — and an important warning: under UAE law, truth is not the shield most people assume. The only truth defence in the Penal Code (Article 428) applies where the person criticised is a public servant and the fact concerns their office — it is not available to a customer criticising a private business. Worse, Article 44(3) of the Cybercrimes Law expressly criminalises publishing material about someone even where it is true and genuine, where the intent is to harm them.
- Uses insult and abuse. Cursing, name-calling, and degrading language directed at an identifiable person is the separate offence of insult — no false fact required.
- Is fabricated entirely. Reviews by people who were never customers — competitors, ex-employees with grievances, paid review-bombers — combine falsity with bad faith, and they are also the category that platforms like Google will remove for policy violations, independent of any legal action.
What This Means for Businesses on the Receiving End
For businesses, the mirror-image lessons:
- A negative review is not automatically defamation. Filing a criminal complaint over a genuine customer’s measured criticism rarely succeeds, can escalate the reputational damage, and wastes the credibility a business needs for the reviews that genuinely are fabricated.
- Document the falsity. Where a review states facts that are provably false — no such transaction, no such event — preserve the evidence: transaction records, correspondence, CCTV where relevant. The strength of a defamation complaint is the provable gap between what was written and what happened.
- Use the platform’s own removal channels in parallel. Google removes reviews that violate its policies — fake engagement, reviews from non-customers, conflicts of interest — through its reporting process. A well-documented policy report is often faster than litigation, and the two paths are not mutually exclusive.
- Respond professionally in public, act legally in private. The public response protects your reputation with future readers; the legal assessment of whether a complaint is warranted belongs with counsel, not in the reply box.
The Bottom Line
Your opinion about a business you actually dealt with, honestly described and civilly expressed, deserves respect — and UAE law, properly applied, respects it. What the law does not tolerate is the false fact, the invented accusation, and the insult — whether they come dressed as a review or not. The distance between “I was disappointed” and “they are thieves” is the distance between a consumer right and a criminal file.
Contact us — whether you are facing a complaint over something you wrote, or your business is being damaged by reviews that cross the line, the earlier the file is assessed, the more options you have.
Related reading from KH Legal: for defamation across social media generally — WhatsApp, Instagram, forwarding and group posts — see our guide to defamation and social media law in the UAE · our criminal litigation practice.
This article is general information, not legal advice. Provisions cited: Federal Decree-Law No. 31 of 2021 (Crimes and Penalties Law), as amended, and Federal Decree-Law No. 34 of 2021 on Countering Rumours and Cybercrimes, as amended by Federal Law No. 5 of 2024, as in force in August 2026.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I be prosecuted in the UAE for a negative Google review?
Yes, if the review states false facts, accuses someone of a crime, or uses insulting language — defamation and insult are criminal offences, and committing them online through a review aggravates the penalty under the Cybercrimes Law. Honest, civil criticism of a genuine experience is a different matter.
Is truth a defence to defamation in the UAE?
Not for a review of a private business. The Penal Code’s only truth defence (Article 428) applies where the person criticised is a public servant and the fact concerns their office. Beyond that, the Cybercrimes Law criminalises publishing material about a person even where it is true and genuine, where the intent is to harm them. This is one of the most common — and most dangerous — misunderstandings.
What makes a review legally safe?
A genuine customer relationship, facts you personally experienced and can prove, measured language aimed at the service rather than a person’s honour, and opinions expressed as opinions.
What can a business do about a fake review?
Two parallel paths: report the review to the platform for policy violations (fake engagement, non-customer, conflict of interest), and — where the review states provably false facts — assess a defamation complaint with documented evidence of the falsity.
Are the penalties higher because the review is online?
Article 43 of the Cybercrimes Law applies where defamation or insult travels through an information network, carrying imprisonment, a fine of AED 250,000 to AED 500,000, or both. For non-citizens, deportation is a possible further consequence at the court’s discretion.