Manchester City doesn’t hesitate to pick up the phone to call his lawyers.
The dream team of nine other people you met for your case before UEFA before the Court of Arbitration is proof of this.
But this raises the question: why has the strength of Manchester City’s legal arsenal not been directed to oppose one of its biggest parties to the conflict in years, the German newspaper Der Spiegel?
The Berlin-based publication has been the subject of many headaches at Etihad Stadium since its series of investigations into “football leaks” turned its attention to Manchester City.
Manchester City’s responses to Der Spiegel’s stories are never directed at the German newspaper, however, they have described email leaks as “illegal piracy” and its publication as “out of context.”
The club also that the whole matter is an ‘attempt to damage the reputation of the club’, which ‘is fixed and clear’.
If Manchester City believes that illegally received documents are being used to intentionally snub its name and that it has lawyers at its disposal, will it not prosecute those responsible?
The impediment to such a technique comes in the form of two historic battles in the German courts that, as legal precedents, protect Der Spiegel.One considers a slaughterhouse of biological birds and the other considers the dubious strategies of a tabloid.
All this explained to me through a veteran of several court battles with Der Spiegel, Dr. Sebastian Gorski, a German media lawyer at the specialized law firm Von Have Fey.
The term “pirated” scares any English journalist.The illegal acquisition of stories in the pre-Internet era, the hacking of voice messages from public figures, closed the popular British newspaper The News of the World and its publishers were prosecuted.
This makes British journalists very nervous, by adding myself, to any curtains that could possibly have been received illegally.
But in Germany, it was the paintings of investigative journalist Gonter Wallraff, who infiltrated to spread the negligence of the hounds of the tabloid press Bild Zeitung, that led to a historical case that protected the right to publish clothing received under false pretexts.
“He sneaked into Bild’s editorial team, discovered a task there, and secretly researched this e-book on Germany’s largest tabloid practices: how they worked and the dubious strategies they used,” Gorski says.”Then the contents of the e-book were tested.”
The outcome of this trial has set a transparent precedent, as Gorski explains: “If you download data illegally, you have to disclose illegal activity in order for [its publication] to be legal.This is, and was, the general rule.
The accusations in Der Spiegel’s articles focus on violations of football regulations than illegal activities, so you might think that this defense might exaggerate.
However, a scandal in a biological bird slaughterhouse resulted in some other ruling that would be the defense of Der Spiegel.
Animal rights activists captured a video of an EU-certified biological poultry factory that revealed grim situations that contrasted sharply with the brand’s public image.The images of this were then broadcast in a German television documentary.
“He showed nothing illegal in this case; just terrible conditions,” Gorski said.
The broadcaster sued through the company that ran the bird slaughterhouse on the grounds that the videos did not reveal any violation of the law.
“This rule on curtains received illegally to demonstrate illegality does not apply if the publication itself is not related to the illegal acquisition of curtains,” Gorski says.”If you just fall to your knees, so to speak, it’s not a matter of the same strict checkpoint.”
Gorski added: “In the case of football leaks, I learned of the past cases that opposed Spiegel that he did his best to claim that he was not personally interested in illegally obtaining the documents he was using.”
In addition, public relations is a thing in a legal dispute involving a media outlet.A user or company that sues a court publication will have to weigh the benefits of a possible legal victory against the likelihood that the accusations it wishes to refute will be repeated at any legal hearing, with a new media policy as a very likely outcome.
Many who first don’t value the burden of the latter.
Either way, Der Spiegel would oppose his chances at Manchester City in a German court.
I am currently guilty of content in Construction News, which specializes in research, I have made many collaborations with the primary media, which come with a
Currently, I am guilty of content in Construction News, which specializes in research.I have made many collaborations with the primary media, which come with a presentation on undercover slave paintings with the BBC, a Financial Times report that revealed a sex assault scandal and a foreign investigation into staff deaths at the world’s largest airport with Architects’ Journal.
My paintings were pre-selected for the Orwell Prize for Journalism in 2020 and I was a finalist at the 2019 British Journalism Awards, appointed 2019 International Building Press Journalist of the Year and awarded the IBP Scoop of the Year Award and the Construction/Infrastructure Writer of the Year.
Follow me on Twitter @JournoZak and I’ll [email protected]