The Versailles Court of Appeal broke, Thursday, the order of the Nanterre Commercial Court which prohibited the investigation site from publishing “new information” on the group of Patrick Drahi.
By Brice Laemle
The Versailles Court of Appeal and its three professional magistrates decided in favor of the right to information. The online investigation newspaper Reflets.info, prosecuted by Altice, can now publish new articles on the Telecoms and Media Group of Billionaire Patrick Drahi. Justice greatly denied, Thursday, January 19, the order of the Commercial Court of Nanterre (Hauts-de-Seine). “Business secret can no longer be opposed to reflections journalists who have done their investigation work,” notes the court, which also condemned the Altice France, Altice Group Lux and Valais Management Services companies (which manages the Fortune by Patrick Drahi) to pay 5,000 euros in lawyers to the company Rebuild.sh (Reflet editor) and 2,000 euros to the National Syndicate of Journalists (SNJ).
The previous decision rendered on Thursday, October 6, 2022 by the Nanterre Commercial Court had relaunched the debate around the very criticized right to “business secret” which, by being bypassed, weakens the freedom to inform. At the start, Altice had assigned the online investigation newspaper on September 21, 2022 for publishing articles based on documents stolen by computer hackers, posted in August. The articles targeted did not disclose details on the companies of the owner of the SFR telecoms operator or the BFM-TV and RMC media, but evoked the lifestyle of Mr. Drahi, in particular his trips in private jet.
Documents hacked by hackers
If the court recognized that he was not competent for press crimes, he had ordered the company Rebuild.sh not to publish “new information” based on internal documents hacked by the Hive hacker group. The defense of Altice had notably argued that the hackers intended to put pressure on Altice to force him to pay a ransom of “$ 5.5 million [5.6 million euros]”, otherwise the rest would be broadcast. According to Hive pirates, only a quarter of the 141 stolen data gigabytes was published on the web. The more articles, the stronger the pressure on Altice, had still pleaded his lawyers. This did not prevent reflections from going beyond the prohibition, by publishing new articles in December 2022, in collaboration with the Blast and Streetpress sites.
The 14 e Chamber of summary proceedings of the Tribunal de Versailles therefore contradicted this first judgment by rendering, Thursday, a reasoned opinion of nineteen pages in which the jurisdiction considers that has no violation of “business secrets” because the information communicated fall under the debate of general interest. She recalls that the “business secret” is not, in accordance with the law, an enforceable against the press.
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