A woman on TikTok has been keeping a public record of her debt repayments after she ended up having to pay over £20,000 in legal fees. The worst part was that the company which took her to court didn’t even exist.
TikToker Gemma Martin explains that she was sued for defamation by a company based in the United Arab Emirates in 2025. She believes that the lawsuit was part of a targeted effort to suppress a BBC article of which she was a big part. However, despite the allegations made by the company against her, it turned out that they didn’t technically exist, well, in a legal sense at least.
@scottish_wife_life Replying to @Rachelle Jeffers lets talk about how a none existing company tried to sue me for defamation #fyp #courtroom #legaltiktok #defamation #bbcnews
♬ original sound – Gemma and Abby
The company expired in 2023
According to Gemma, the company that was trying to sue her had actually expired in 2023 whereas the claim against her had been made in 2025. “You obviously cannot sue somebody through an expired entity,” she explains. While this company did try to pass off another entity based in Canada as their parent company, the other company had nothing to do with the one in the UAE, meaning the people behind the lawsuit had no legal grounds with which to sue Gemma.
The business licenses showed that the licenses for both companies had no legal links, “This, in a nutshell, essentially means that they were suing me as a company that didn’t exist.” Obviously this ultimately meant that Gemma would win but not before going through nine months of fighting her case in the courts.
Gemma was still stung with a massive fee
Despite the company having no grounds on which to sue, Gemma was still left with a hefty legal fee of over £22,000 (almost $30,000). Commenters on TikTok asked why she would have to pay such a high amount when she wasn’t found guilty. Some also placed the blame on Gemma’s solicitor for doing a “shockingly poor job” and allowing the court case to drag on for nine months (obviously the longer the case went on the more Gemma would have to pay them).
However, Gemma defended her solicitor as she explained that the company suing her are “very experienced at what they do, they know how to play the system, they know how to do stall tactics, delay hearings.” It seems the company may have been trying to intentionally bankrupt Gemma as they knew they would not win the case.
Unfortunately the tactic seems to have paid off as Gemma now has an incredible amount of debt fro the legal battle. One viewer recommended contacting the law society of Scotland (where she lives) with the failure of the company’s solicitors for failing to “discover they were hired by a non-entity.” Gemma responded claiming that she’s in the process of writing a complaint to SLCC.
Hopefully she’s able to get the company or its solicitors to pay her legal fees but until then she’s stuck with a massive debt despite winning the case.
