The trial concerns sales of Nazi memorabilia conducted on the US
site’s auction pages. The same facts are the subject of an ongoing
civil dispute in the US courts. According to media reports, Timothy
Koogle faces up to five years in prison and a maximum fine of
almost €46,000 if found guilty under the French laws that forbid
the incitement of racial hatred.
In November 2000, a French judge ordered Yahoo! to block access
by French nationals to auction sites hosted on yahoo.com that sold
Nazi memorabilia such as daggers, flags, stamps and coins from the
Third Reich. The company had banned such auctions from its French
site, yahoo.fr, to comply with French law. However, it argued that
its US site should not be bound by French law. French anti-racism
groups disagreed, as did the French judge before whom they brought
the case.
Subsequently, Yahoo! won a declaration from a US judge in
November 2001 that, in effect, said Yahoo! could legally ignore the
French ruling. That ruling is now being appealed by the French
anti-racism groups.
