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In a judgment of 29 March 2011, the Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Court of Justice - BGH) ruled that the German courts had no international jurisdiction in proceedings concerning a violation of personality rights resulting from an internet publication. The plaintiff is a Russian national with residences in Germany and Russia. The defendant, a former fellow pupil of the plaintiff, lives in the United States. After a class reunion in Moscow, at which the two parties were present, the defendant wrote an article in which, among other things, she described the plaintiff’s appearance and lifestyle. The...

The European Commission has finished the preliminary analysis of the measures implementing the Audiovisual Media Services (AVMS) Directive into national law notified by 16 Member States: Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Malta, the Netherlands, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Slovakia and the United Kingdom. Subsequently, the European Commission has sent fact-finding letters to these states inquiring about these implementing measures. The Commission is thus seeking to ensure that all provisions of the AVMS Directive have been correctly transposed into...

Following an exchange of letters between the Hungarian Minister of Public Administration and Justice and Commissioner Neelie Kroes and discussions at expert level the Hungarian government and the European Commission have agreed on a set of amendments to the newly adopted Hungarian media Acts (Act CIV. of 2010 on Freedom of Expression and on the Basic rules of media content and Act CLXXXV. of 2010 on Media Services and Mass Media; see IRIS 2010-8/34, IRIS 2010-9/6, IRIS 2011-1/37, IRIS 2011-2/3 and IRIS 2011-2/30). The agreed amendments comprise four issues. Their most important elements can be...

With the Loi du 17 décembre 2010 portant modification de la loi modifiée du 27 juillet 1991 sur les médias électroniques (the Law of 17 December 2010 Amending the Modified Law of 27 July 1991 on the Electronic Media, Electronic Media Law 2010) and eight accompanying Regulations of the same day, Luxembourg has finalised the transposition of the EU Audiovisual Media Services Directive and updated one of its main media-related acts. After a first step amending the advertising rules in a Regulation of 2008, the new law and regulations align the Luxembourgish rules for audiovisual media services with...

On 17 January 2011 Neelie Kroes, Vice-President of the European Commission responsible for the Digital Agenda, addressed the European Parliament’s Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee in an extraordinary meeting on the state of play of the Commission’s examination of the recently adopted Hungarian Media Law (see IRIS 2011-2/30). Concerns have been raised regarding the compliance of the new rules with the EU’s Audiovisual Media Services (AVMS) Directive, as well as, more generally, their respect for fundamental media freedoms, such as freedom of expression. Commissioner Kroes pointed...