"<i>The decision rendered, Thursday, October 6, by the Commercial Court of Nanterre (Hauts-de-Seine/France) tends to relaunch the debate around the highly contested new French law about "business secrecy" which, by being circumvented, weakens the freedom to inform.<p>Altice, the telecoms and media group of billionaire Patrick Drahi, sued the online investigative newspaper Reflets.info on September 21 for publishing articles based on documents stolen by hackers, posted online in August .<p>While the court itself recognizes that it has no jurisdiction over press offences, it ordered the company Rebuild.sh, publisher of Reflets, not to publish "new information" based on the internal documents hacked by the Hive hacker group.<p>In the interim order, the president of the court argues that the "asserted desire to prosecute the publication of information fraudulently obtained by a third party poses a threat" which he describes as "imminent damage" for Altice.<p>He justifies his decision "in the face of the uncertainty of the content of future publications, which could reveal information relating to business secrets" and condemns Reflets to pay 4,500 euros in legal costs to Altice. However, the right to "business secrecy" is not enforceable against the press - it is expressly stated in the law.</i>"
If my French is up to the legalese, this means a French court ordered journalists not to publish further articles from a source. The reasoning being that "possible publication of trade secrets might damage the company".<p>That seems totally out of line for a democracy.