Cablegate: France: Appeals Court Upholds Decision Clearing

This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

131538Z Apr 05

UNCLAS PARIS 002512

SIPDIS

STATE FOR EUR/WE, EUR/OHI AND EB/CIP

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: ECPS KJUS FR
SUBJECT: FRANCE: APPEALS COURT UPHOLDS DECISION CLEARING
YAHOO

Ref: (A) 03 Paris 1138

(B) Paris 2040

1. Summary: In the most recent development in the on-going
legal dispute between Yahoo Inc. and French anti-racism
groups, a French court exonerated former Yahoo CEO Timothy
Koogle of responsibility for providing links to now-defunct
internet auctions of Nazi paraphernalia. End summary.

2. A ruling delivered on April 6 by a Paris appeals court
upheld a lower court's 2003 ruling (ref A) that cleared
former Yahoo CEO Timothy Koogle of charges that promoted the
sale of Nazi paraphernalia in France via Yahoo action
websites based in the U.S. The sale or display of Nazi-
related items is banned in France, and Yahoo's French
subsidiary, Yahoo France, has complied with this law.
However, the French Yahoo website provided links to the
American version of the site, which formerly contained
auction pages for Nazi items. French human rights groups
requested that Yahoo block French users from accessing the
Nazi content on the American site; Yahoo responded that this
was impractical. As a result, a lawsuit was brought against
Koogle and Yahoo in 2000 by two French groups, the League
Against Racism and Antisemitism and the Union of Jewish
Students of France. The ensuing legal dispute has lasted
for five years.

3. Koogle left Yahoo in 2001 and recently became CEO of the
internet networking company Friendster. A lower court
ruling absolved him or wrongdoing in 2003, a decision that
was upheld in the most recent decision by the Paris appeals
court. Oliver Metzner, the lawyer representing Koogle,
stated, "This judgment confirms that Koogle and Yahoo have
always respected French law." Nazi-related items have since
been banned from the auction pages of the American Yahoo
website as a matter of corporate policy. However, Charles
Korman, a lawyer representing the League Against Racism and
Antisemitism stated that the ruling would be appealed to the
Cour de Cassation, the Supreme Court for French civil cases.
The appeals court decision can only be overturned by the
Supreme Court on formal legal grounds, in which case the
suit would begin again at the lower court. Despite Korman's
recent statement, there has been no indication that the
necessary legal grounds exist for the Cour de Cassation to
review the case.

4. Comment: Some in France have argued that, in the eyes
of the U.S., they can do no right, criticized both for
recent increases in anti-Semitic acts (reftel B) as well as
for impeding free speech when attempting to combat what they
view as a legitimate cause of the phenomenon: internet hate
sites and internet auctions of nazi paraphernalia. The way
the Yahoo case has gone to date, it appears that the courts
are not inclined to impede free speech, at least not with
respect to Internet content originating outside the European
Union. Post recalls that in mid-2004, two Assistant U.S.
Attorneys General spoke on the issue at an OSCE conference
in Paris on the relationship between racist, xenophobic, and
anti-Semitic hate crimes and the internet. One stated,
"Government efforts to regulate bias-motivated speech on the
Internet are fundamentally mistaken." Fortunately, this
latest (and probably final) round of the Yahoo case does not
cross this boundary. End comment.

LEACH

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