Ajinomoto launches an appeal against High Court 'nasty' ruling

Aspartame maker Ajinomoto has lodged the 'skeleton arguments' that will form the basis of its appeal against a recent High Court ruling about the sweetener.

Ajinomoto took legal action against Asda last year to challenge its use of the word 'nasty' to describe aspartame. However, while High Court judge Mr Justice Tugendhat agreed that aspartame was not unsafe in a controversial ruling in July this year, he concluded that Asda's description of it as 'nasty' did not amount to malicious falsehood.

Instead, he argued, "['nasty' is] not seriously meant to convey information, but rather is meant to attract customers already inclined to hold the view - reasonably or otherwise - that there is something objectionable about aspartame"

Asda hailed his decision as a "victory for common sense", but Ajinomoto found his conclusions baffling as "it would seem to be common sense that stating that aspartame is a 'nasty' and that products which do not contain it are 'good for you' means aspartame is potentially bad for you"

"It's clear to us that there is case for an appeal," said a spokeswoman. "Asda still hasn't provided a definition of what 'nasty' means. What's unusual is that having accepted that 'nasty' could mean what we said it meant, the judge then spent 40 paragraphs trying to come up with another way of interpreting the word. Not only did he come up with a different meaning that he had constructed, but in choosing between meanings, he found in favour of the less damaging one. That's certainly new!"

An appeal is unlikely to take place before the beginning of next year, and would "probably excite some interest in legal circles because it will test some interesting new precedents set in the ruling", she said.