Niall O’-Connor:
Cowardly bastards …if this can be confirmed I will pass the story on to one of my contacts at the Guardian. And I will ensure that the other cowards who received emails last Friday about the websites, but chose to keep quiet are also exposed- by informing their companies of this obscene example of corporate bullying.
Chris
I will be at the Cheltenham Festival over the next four days. Unless, over the next week, there is an apology; explanation, or indeed some compensation offered by the persons who have done this, I have every intention of taking the matter further.
In the meantime, it is within you right to both screen capture both of the sites and to send an email to persons at newsfutures.com asking them to remove the website, as it is hosted on their server. You can also demand an explanation as to why this is the case. Do not publish nay repsons that they give you, and I will speak with you on my return next week.
Thankfully I have copies of them myself – I see they have just taken them down.
And I would like to add for the person who set up the website, and who did not seem so au fait with defamation law, a reminder of the law of libel in France, where, inceidentally, the piece was published, as it was browser cached there, when Mr Masse read it;
French criminal libel law offers that the record be set straight within months, with the defamer getting a criminal record, and being obliged to publish a prompt and appropriate retraction.
Defendants get only three months’ notice to appear before a tribunal. They have just 10 days from receipt of the summons to file evidence in their defence if they wish to assert that the defamatory statement was true. They must also provide a list of witnesses they wish to call at the hearing. Evidence not submitted within the 10-day period will not be admitted, and any witnesses not on the list will not be heard.
Hearings last less than a day, sometimes taking no more than an hour.
Defendants must either prove that the statement in question was true, or that it was not defamatory, or that even if defamatory it was intended in good faith. If they fail, they will be liable to the maximum fine of €12,000. Claimants may also seek civil damages before the criminal court. It is customary to ask for €1, as the real purpose of the action is to protect one’s reputation. Higher civil damages can be awarded by the court, but these are rare and usually no more than a few thousand euros.
The French, unlike the English, assume everyone has a reputation that deserves protection and which would be harmed by defamatory remarks. The claimant does not need to have any connection whatsoever with France – it is sufficient that the offending article was published in France.
Costs will partially follow the decision, but the risk is low as this swift justice is relatively cheap, cost awards of more than €3,000 are rare, and legal expenses of either party rarely exceed €10,000.
So, I think at first instance you should make a “droit de reponse” demand to the owner of [EDITED BY BLOG PUBLISHER] that a retraction is published on those webpages. Then I would once again ask Mr Cowgil for any evidence that he has in relation to the website.
Dear Monsieur Masse
As an advokat member of Sveriges advokatsamfund, specialising in European Law, I can assure you that you have a clear cut case in criminal libel against this company Newsfutures, on whose website the relevant websites were hosted.
In the first instance I would suggest that you write to the CEO of the company,requesting a rsponse to the question as to why the website was hosted on his company’s server. Pending a result, speak with a local lawyer; it will not be
as expensive as you imagine, and your case is pretty watertight (yes, the court will view that the site was published in France).
But perhaps the company will speak to resolve the issue in response to your initial letter. There is no scope for them to deny it.
Good luck.
sorry – on whose server (not website)
Niall,
The reverse-IP data was fudged, actually, in order to put the blame on NewsFutures (and maybe on Consensus Point, too.)
The IP numbers were fudged.
http://www.midasoracle.org/200…..re-fudged/