“The court has rendered an unprecedented and extremely serious decision: a ban on the future of publishing information”. The days go by and look alike, we think in the back of this crowded room – mainly journalism students. Last August, a group of hackers called “Hive” attacked the servers of several companies in the Altice empire, owned by billionaire Patrick Drahi, using “ransomware”: in other words, he had “sucked up” the content, before replacing it with an encrypted copy. Failing payment of the more than five million dollars claimed, the pirates – supposedly from the Russian sphere of influence – had been broadcast on the dark canvas a quarter of the documents thus withdrawn. At the beginning of September, Altice had split a press release, from which it emerged “that no sensitive data has been compromised”, and had filed a complaint against X. But in the meantime, the information site reflections.info had posted three articles based on information extracted from this mass of documents.

Three companies in the group – including one Swiss and one Luxembourg – then sued the press company with reference to the time indicated before the president of the Commercial Court of Nanterre (Hauts-de-Seine). They invoked a manifestly unlawful disorder (C. pr. civ., art. 873), reinforced by an attack on an automated data processing system (STAD), but also on business secrecy. In its decision, the commercial court considers in particular that the newspaper “is not the author of the computer hacking [et] a published […] information already online, even if it is only accessible to a restricted audience”. The companies also claimed imminent harm, in that “when hackers decide to release more files, the log […] will certainly ask for new articles there”. Retaining this last argument, the court ordered the newspaper “not to publish […] new information” – period, by the way. The main call from the publishing company then responded to the incidental call from Altice.

At the Versailles hearing, the president began by specifying that “the means exchanged have evolved, hence the procedural questions…”. His report is above all peppered with questions. For example: “If concealment is established, can journalists be blamed for it? “. Or: “Are there in these articles…