Business Defamation. Hundreds of company and manufacturing agents have been sued for making slanderous statements about a company that result in financial dam-ages, lost customers,unemployment, or lost sales. For example, a competitor to Star-bucks can’t say that Starbucks’ coffee tastes like swill without some means of support-ing the statement. Customers can being private lawsuits,and the FTC is empowered to impose a cease-and-desist order or injunction on companies that engage in unfair or deceptive practices through their salespeople.Business defamation includes these offenses: