The courts of the country where a victim’s centre of interests is located do not have jurisdiction to rule on the entirety of the damage caused by a television programme broadcast in several Member States, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) held in a judgment delivered on Thursday 18 June (Case C-232/25).
The case pitted a former member of a clandestine Polish military organisation active during WWII and a veterans’ association of that unit against the German co-producers of a historical series on the Second World War. The applicants considered that the work infringed their personality rights by portraying their former military formation as antisemitic and complicit in the Holocaust.
Against that background, the Polish Supreme Court asked the Court of Justice of the EU about the jurisdiction of national courts to rule on the dispute in its entirety.
In its judgment, the CJEU clearly distinguishes television broadcasting from dissemination on the internet. As regards television, victims may bring proceedings in each Member State of broadcast, but national courts may order compensation only for the harm suffered at that level. An action for compensation for the entirety of the damage must therefore be brought before the courts for the persons concerned, that is to say in the Member State where they are domiciled or established.
As regards dissemination on the internet, the Court recalls that a global action at the centre of interests is available only if the content makes it possible to identify the victim as an individual. That is not the case for the former soldier, whose mere membership of the formation is insufficient. By contrast, the association may rely on that option, because it protects the memory of the military group concerned.
Lastly, the Court establishes that the Member States’ courts may hear actions seeking both compensation for non-material damage and an order to cease the breach of personality rights but not the rectification of the information in that series placed online.
To see the judgment of the Court of Justice: https://aeur.eu/f/mfn (Original version in French by Justine Manaud)