Reuters reports that former FI boss Max Mosley has prevailed again against News of the World – this time, in a Paris court.
A French court ruled on Tuesday that Rupert Murdoch’s now-defunct British tabloid the News of the World violated the privacy of the former head of Formula One in publishing photographs of him with five prostitutes in 2008.
Max Mosley, 71, had sued in France — where the newspaper had been distributed and where privacy laws are strict — after earlier winning damages in a British court from the News Corp-owned tabloid, which was shuttered during a phone-hacking scandal earlier this year.
The Paris court fined News Corp 10,000 euros ($13,750) and granted Mosley damages of 7,000 euros, with an additional 15,000 euros for procedural fees.
Read more on Reuters.
Although the amount of the award is not high, it is a significant ruling as the paper was published in the U.K. and was distributed in France. This puts publishers on notice that plaintiffs might theoretically sue in every single country where a publication appears or is distributed and not just in the country of the publisher’s origin.
Will this make publishers think more carefully about other countries’ privacy laws? We’ll have to see, but it may well have some effect like that.