The Versailles Court of Appeal and its three professional magistrates ruled in favor of the right to information. The online investigative journal Reflets.info, sued by Altice, can now publish new articles on the telecom and media group of billionaire Patrick Drahi. Justice has largely overturned, Thursday, January 19, the order of the Commercial Court of Nanterre (Hauts-de-Seine). “Business secrecy can no longer be opposed to journalists of reflections who have done their investigative work”notes the court which, moreover, condemned the companies Altice France, Altice Group Lux and Valais Management Services (which manages the fortune of Patrick Drahi) to pay 5,000 euros in legal fees to the company Rebuild.sh (publisher of reflections) and 2,000 euros to the National Union of Journalists (SNJ).
The previous decision handed down on Thursday October 6, 2022 by the Commercial Court of Nanterre had relaunched the debate around the much criticized right to “business secrecy” which, by being circumvented, weakens the freedom to inform. Initially, Altice had summoned the online investigative journal on September 21, 2022 for publishing articles based on documents stolen by hackers, posted online in August. The articles in question did not disclose details about the companies of the owner of the telecom operator SFR or the media BFM-TV and RMC, but evoked the lifestyle of Mr. Drahi, in particular his trips by private jet.
No violation of “business secrecy”
If the court recognized that it was not competent for press offences, it had ordered the company Rebuild.sh not to publish “new information” based on internal documents hacked by the Hive group of hackers. Altice’s defense argued in particular that the hackers intended to put pressure on Altice to force it to pay a ransom of “$5.5 million [5,6 millions d’euros] », otherwise the rest would be broadcast. According to Hive hackers, only a quarter of the 141 gigabytes of stolen data has been published on the web. The more articles there are, the greater the pressure on Altice, his lawyers had further pleaded. This did not prevent reflections to override the ban, by publishing new articles in December 2022, in collaboration with the sites Blast and Street Press.
The 14e summary chamber of the Versailles court therefore contradicted this first judgment by issuing, on Thursday, a reasoned opinion of nineteen pages in which the court considers that there is no violation of “business secrecy”, because the information communicated is part of the debate of general interest. It recalls that “business secrecy” is not, in accordance with the law, enforceable against the press.
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