Suez's appeal against judgement on the film FLOW rejected by French court
The ruling reaffirms that multinationals cannot use their power to silence the media.
Dear allies and colleagues,
We received some good news this week.
In 2010, a French court rejected a defamation lawsuit brought by Suez Environment against the documentary film FLOW. It also required Suez to reimburse certain legal fees incurred by the defendants, in this case, the Franco-German TV channel ARTE and the distributer of the film - Celluloid Dreams.
Not content with the judgement, Suez went to the Court of Appeals to appeal the decision and once again last week on 27 June 2012, the court rejected the appeal and ruled in favour of the defendants. This reaffirms that multinationals cannot use their power to silence us.
We applaud the court for its commitment to upholding the rights of the media to scrutinize the activities of multinational corporations, especially when those activities compromise the ability of millions of people around the world to access a vital commons.
On another note, we now await more information on the European Commission's investigation into price fixing by Suez, Veolia and Lyonnaise Des Eaux, further adding to their chec