DCS sues small YouTuber for accurate review

Australian lithium battery manufacturer Deep Cycle Systems sued independent YouTuber Stefan Fischer for defamation after he published reviews documenting battery degradation and misleading warranty changes. The District Court of Queensland ruled against DCS on 11 March 2025, finding that DCS was not an "excluded corporation" under section 9 of the Defamation Act 2005 (Qld) and therefore had no standing to sue for defamation.^[1] DCS has since refused to pay Fischer's court-ordered legal costs, prompting Fischer to pursue a Federal Court winding-up application against the company.^[2]

Deep Cycle Systems (DCS) is an Australian manufacturer of lithium batteries marketed for off-road, camping, and marine use. The company's sole director, Marek Tomolowicz, is also the sole director of two other entities: Energy Tech Electronics Pty Ltd and Tomprop Pty Ltd.^[1] DCS's legal action and aggressive responses to negative reviews demonstrated the company's willingness to use litigation to suppress unfavorable feedback.^[3]

Stefan Fischer runs AllOffroad 4x4 Adventures TV, a YouTube channel producing off-road product reviews.^[2] DCS provided Fischer with batteries for testing.^[3] Fischer published a series of video reviews between August and December 2023 documenting excessive battery degradation and warranty discrepancies.^[4] His reviews were based on extensive real-world testing, earning him support from his audience and figures in the independent review community.^[5]

Fischer's videos, which form the crux of the lawsuit, detail several key points:

• Battery degradation: Australia's Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) funded independent testing at the Canberra Battery Test Centre (run by ITP Renewables). The DCS PV 10.0 battery, with a 10kWh nameplate capacity, reached a state of health of approximately 57% after roughly 1,100 cycles. The battery could not sustain discharge at its rated C3 rate, shutting down well before the expected energy was delivered.^[6] These results showed the worst capacity fade and operational limitations among all batteries tested in the program.

• Misleading warranty terms: Fischer pointed out discrepancies between the warranty claims posted on DCS's website and the apparent changes in policy. While the company's warranty page stated it was last updated on 14 June 2021, archived versions of the page from March 2023 and November 2023 revealed the terms had changed without updating this date.^[7]
  • The March 2023 policy states: "The battery will be determined to be defective if it fails to deliver less than 80% of its rated capacity during the warranty period."^[8]
  • The November 2023 policy had changed: "The battery will be determined to be defective if it fails to deliver less than 80% of its rated capacity during the warranty period for normal installations. The battery will be determined to be defective if it fails to deliver less than 70% of its rated capacity during the warranty period when installed inside engine bays or engine compartments."^[7]
  • This change weakened consumer protections for engine bay installations while the "last updated" date was never changed, creating the impression that the 70% threshold had been the policy since 2021.

• Australian government testing: The ARENA-funded Phase 3 Capacity Test Results (Section 6.3 of Public Report 12) confirmed the DCS battery performed worse than every other battery in the test, validating Fischer's concerns about the battery's real-world reliability.^[6]

On 2 May 2024, DCS filed a defamation lawsuit in the District Court of Queensland (Proceeding Number 1169 of 2024).^[1] The lawsuit alleged that Fischer's reviews were defamatory and malicious, claiming the negative publicity had caused the company economic losses. DCS sought compensatory damages, aggravated compensatory damages, interest, and legal costs; the sum was left "to be determined."^[3]

Fischer's community rallied around him. A GoFundMe campaign titled "Help Fight for Truth in YouTube Reviews" was created on 18 June 2024 and raised $118,577 AUD from 2,237 donors against a $140,000 AUD goal.^[2]

The legal threat drew concern from content creators and independent reviewers. Electronics YouTuber Dave Jones (EEVBlog) warned that if DCS won, "it will be a threat to the entire review industry."^[5] A tech blog covering the case documented that right-to-repair advocate Louis Rossmann called DCS "scumbags" on his channel and stated "it's not defamation if it's true," directly challenging DCS to sue him as well.^[9]

Commentators described the case as a textbook example of the "Streisand effect": DCS' attempt to suppress the reviews drew far more public attention to the criticisms than the original videos had received.^[10] Since the news broke, DCS took down its Facebook page, and ProductReview reported detecting suspected fake positive reviews on DCS' listing.^[3] Fischer, who had initially privated his DCS review videos, re-published them after the community response.^[2]

On 11 March 2025, the District Court of Queensland ruled that DCS could not maintain its defamation action against Stefan Fischer.^[1]

Under section 9 of the Defamation Act 2005 (Qld), a for-profit corporation can only sue for defamation if it qualifies as an "excluded corporation." This requires the corporation to have fewer than 10 employees (broadly defined to include contractors subject to the company's control and direction) AND not be an associated entity of another corporation.^[11] DCS failed on both tests.

The court found that:

• DCS failed to prove it had fewer than 10 employees. The company had at least five known employees, but unexplained research and development expenditures of $2,759,940 (FY2022-23) and $621,154 (FY2023-24) raised the prospect of additional undisclosed staff. Mr Tomolowicz's own prior statements about overseas workers and "having recently hired four new staff" further undermined DCS' position.^[1]
• DCS was an associated entity of Energy Tech Electronics under section 50AAA of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth). Both companies shared Mr Tomolowicz's personal credit card for expenses (reconciled only yearly), had inter-company loans (including $119,713 from Energy Tech to DCS), and shared physical assets including a Landcruiser, trailer, and mobile phone. The court concluded both companies operated as "joint means of generating income for the benefit of Mr Tomolowicz."^[1]
• Mr Tomolowicz admitted to using a fictitious AI-generated employee called "Michelle" to correspond with customers. The judge stated that Tomolowicz "seemed entirely unperturbed that it was a misrepresentation as to who the client was dealing with."^[1]
• The judge found Tomolowicz's testimony unreliable, noting he admitted telling "mistruths" to Fischer and had falsely claimed DCS held a 30% stake in a manufacturing facility in China.^[1]

The court never reached the merits of whether the reviews were actually defamatory. Deep Cycle Systems' claim failed purely on jurisdictional grounds: The company could not establish it had fewer than 10 employees, and it was an associated entity of another corporation, so it had no standing to sue for defamation.^[4]

On 17 March 2025, DCS published a statement saying it was "deeply disheartened" by the ruling and claiming Fischer's reviews were motivated by grievance after DCS declined to provide further free products. The company did not announce an appeal.^[12] The 28-day appeal period passed with no public evidence of an appeal being filed.

Despite the court ordering DCS to pay Fischer's legal costs ("standard costs"), DCS refused to pay. Fischer's legal team advised that "standard costs" would likely cover only a portion of his actual expenses.^[13]

Fischer hired a cost assessor after DCS failed to comply with the costs order.^[14] Fischer served a statutory demand on DCS, which they ignored. His legal costs exceeded the $120,000 his supporters raised, and the next step is a Federal Court winding-up application to appoint a liquidator and force recovery of the judgment debt.^[2]

In a YouTube comment posted 20 November 2025 on a video about Vulcan Strength's lawsuit against YouTube reviewer Gluck's Gym, AllOffroad 4x4 stated that efforts to recoup costs were still ongoing.^[15]

Australia has no federal anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) legislation. The Australian Capital Territory's Protection of Public Participation Act 2008 is the only anti-SLAPP law in any Australian jurisdiction, but section 8(2)(a) of the Act explicitly excludes defamation claims from its scope, rendering it inapplicable to cases like DCS v Fischer.^[16][17]

In October 2024, 85 organizations including the Human Rights Law Centre and Australian Conservation Foundation wrote to Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus calling for federal anti-SLAPP laws.^[18] The HRLC's December 2024 report Stop the SLAPP recommended all Australian governments enact anti-SLAPP legislation.^[19] No federal anti-SLAPP bill has been introduced in the Australian Parliament as of March 2026.

The DCS case joins a pattern of Australian corporations using defamation law to target critics. Previous examples include the Gunns 20 case, where Tasmanian timber company Gunns Ltd sued 20 environmentalists, and the Greenpeace vs AGL dispute over criticism of AGL's environmental practices.^[17]

• Vulcan Strength
• Case Judgement — File: Deep Cycle Systems Pty Ltd v Fischer -2025- QDC 25.pdf