Thinking of taking Sony to small claims court, if I lose will I be liable to pay....

[minsky1]

You can never beat Sony in court. The law is rigged. Better off badmouthing them in all possible web forums. Make sure you use anon proxies from Iran. Legal disclaimer: of course I would never do that...

yep, the judge would be very unresponsive to going against them, thats what happened with me taking on Honda.

[Incognito]

You can never beat Sony in court. The law is rigged.

Complete and utter bollocks.

To the OP, useful link for you.

As you're dealing business to business, you cannot request a repair or replacement. You are entitled to sue them for damages though, however to do so you will need to pay for the repair yourself then claim the repair costs back through the small claims. When you pay the repair costs preferably send a cheque in along with a letter recorded delivery advising them you reject their claim of cause of damage and are paying the repair costs under protest. If you can't pay by cheque / postal order then ensure you advise them by phone when paying the same message and then send a letter recorded delivery to their registered address (on the website).

Alternatively contact your local Trading Standards with your complaint along with links (or print outs) of examples of this problem being quite common.

As for the small claims, for a claim of £400 it will cost you £50 to issue the claim and £55 for the hearing fee. These costs are recoverable if you win. You can also claim reasonable expenses, i.e. postage costs, etc. Neither you or Sony are able to claim for legal costs. The only time these type of costs will be awarded in the small claims is if the claim is vexatious (i.e. you know you have no chance of winning and are doing it for annoyance) or if one or either party doesn't turn up at court.

The most important thing to realise about the small claims is that for small claims like these, it is far cheaper for a company to settle than argue and win the case as they are left with the burden of paying their own legal costs.