Olivier Martinez, famous in the UK as an ex-boyfriend of Kylie
Minogue, sued Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) and Associated
Newspapers for breach of France's strict privacy laws after the
newspapers published stories suggesting Martinez and Minogue had
recommenced their relationship, which had ended a year previously.
The stories also detailed their movements together in Paris earlier
this year.
MGN was sued because of an article at sundaymirror.co.uk, while
Associated was sued over articles at dailymail.co.uk and
thisislondon.co.uk. For each title the publishers were ordered to
pay €4,500.
The Tribunal De Grande Instance De Paris rejected claims that it
did not have the right to hear the case. It had jurisdiction
because the online versions of the articles were viewable in
France, it found.
Though he was only awarded €4,500 per publication, Martinez had
claimed €30,000 in total in a series of privacy cases about
articles making the same allegations.
His lawyer, Emmanuel Asmar, told OUT-LAW.COM that French courts
usually ordered small payouts. The significance of the case was not
financial, he said, but in the setting of a precedent that UK
publications could be liable under French privacy legislation.
"The big thing is that for the first time the [court] considered
that UK publishers are liable for their contents in France since it
is viewable here and the UK is a member of the EU," he said.
A related case from earlier this year was notable because it
held one publisher responsible for material published on its site
by another publisher via an RSS syndication feed.
That case was also taken by Asmar but on behalf of La Vie En
Rose director Olivier Dahan. He successfully sued three websites
for publishing stories about him and actress Sharon Stone via an
RSS feed.
"[The RSS] link provides the link plus a short summary of some
content," Asmar told OUT-LAW Radio last month. "We won the
judgment. We won first on the original author of the information
and secondly on the link. They were sentenced because they
published the link."
Martinez also won in a case against three websites earlier this
year when a court ruled that by publishing a link to offending
material the blogs were liable for the privacy invasions of that
material.
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