Latest news with #Gericht
LBCI
05-07-2025
- Business
- LBCI
User wins case against Germany's ‘Meta' over data privacy
A German court on Friday ordered the U.S. company Meta to pay 5,000 euros to a Facebook user for violating European data protection rules, in a decision that paves the way for more complaints. A statement issued by the Leipzig Regional Court in eastern Germany stated that the 'high' fine is due to Meta's 'serious violation of European data protection law' through its 'commercial' tools designed to identify Facebook users, thus realizing billions of dollars through targeted advertising. According to the court, this practice violates European law because it leads to near-permanent surveillance of users' private lives, even when they are not using their Facebook or Instagram accounts, which are owned by Meta. Unlike other jurisdictions in Germany, the Leipzig court did not apply national privacy law, but only European law. Meta may appeal this decision to the Dresden Regional Court in eastern Germany. The Leipzig judge noted that the US giant's European platform, based in Ireland, systematically transfers private data to countries around the world, including the U.S., where it is exploited on a 'scale unknown to the user.' The court said it 'recognizes' that the decision 'may encourage many Facebook users to file lawsuits without proving specific individual harm.' It added that the European rules cited in the ruling 'are specifically aimed at ensuring effective data protection, through private actions before civil courts, beyond purely administrative proceedings.' Meta also announced that it would challenge a record €200 million fine imposed by the European Commission in April for non-compliance with personal data rules, calling the penalty 'incorrect and unlawful.' In Europe, Meta has to seek users' consent to integrate data from its services for advertising purposes. Therefore, it offers a paid subscription without ads or a free subscription that allows data sharing. Brussels has ruled that this 'pay or consent' option has an injunctive character for users. In Germany, Meta, like other tech giants (Alphabet/Google, Amazon and Apple), is considered dominant in its market by the German Competition Office, making it subject to possible additional penalties.
Washington Post
16-06-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
Syrian doctor gets life sentence in Germany for slayings, torture under Assad
A German court sentenced a Syrian doctor to life in prison on Monday for crimes against humanity and war crimes, under a legal concept that allows countries to prosecute war crimes that took place outside their territory. According to German prosecutors, Alaa Mousa, 40, abused and killed prisoners suspected to be enemies of then-Syrian President Bashar al-Assad while working as a doctor in military hospitals and prisons in the early 2010s. During this period, Mousa was stationed for a time at military hospital Mezzeh No. 601, later made infamous when a Syrian defector helped photograph thousands of corpses in the facility mutilated by torture.
The Independent
16-06-2025
- The Independent
German court sentences Syrian doctor to life in prison for torture and war crimes in his homeland
A German court sentenced a Syrian doctor to life imprisonment for torture and war crimes in his Syrian homeland on Monday for killing two people and torturing nine in Syria between 2011 and 2012. The Frankfurt Higher Regional Court also established the particular gravity of the guilt, which in practice virtually rules out early release after 15 years — as is often the case in Germany when people are sentenced to life imprisonment. The 40-year-old Syrian, who was identified as Alaa M. in line with German privacy rules, was placed in preventive detention, German news agency dpa reported. In his verdict, presiding judge Christoph Koller described the actions of the accused in the military hospital in the Syrian city of Homs in the early stages of the civil war that began in 2011. He said the doctor had sadistic tendencies and acted them out during the torture. 'Above all, the accused enjoyed harming people that seemed inferior and low-value to him,' Koller said, according to dpa. During the trial, which lasted almost three and a half years, victims had described the most severe abuse, including beatings, kicks and the setting of wounds and body parts on fire, dpa reported. Koller emphasized that without the willingness and courage of witnesses to share the details of their suffering the facts of the case could not have been clarified. M. had lived in Germany for ten years and had worked as an orthopedic surgeon in several clinics, most recently in Bad Wildungen in northern Hesse. In summer 2020, he was arrested after some of his victims had recognized him from a TV documentary about Homs, dpa reported. The doctor supposedly tortured prisoners who were considered part of the opposition to former Syrian dictator Bashar Assad. The trial against him began in January 2022. Alaa M. described himself as not guilty during the trial, alleging that he was the victim of a conspiracy, dpa wrote. The verdict is not yet final.
Washington Post
28-05-2025
- Business
- Washington Post
Court throws out Peruvian farmer's climate lawsuit against energy giant
A German court ruled Wednesday that one of the country's largest energy giants is not liable for alleged harm caused by climate change in Peru, throwing out a decade-long claim by a farmer who fears his mountainside home in the Andes could be destroyed by melted glacier ice. The court found that RWE, the utility firm, was not obliged to contribute to the costs of protecting Huaraz, a city of some 120,000 people in the foothills of the Andes, from the risk of catastrophic flooding made more likely by climate change. The case was brought by one of its residents, farmer Saúl Luciano Lliuya. The judgment marks a blow for climate campaigners who had sought to use the German court system to establish a legal precedent for making energy firms liable for the costs of mitigating the impact of climate change globally. RWE, which has never operated in Peru, had argued that individual emitters could not be held responsible for 'universally rooted' processes like climate change. In a statement Wednesday, the energy firm welcomed the ruling, which found the risk of flooding to Luicano Lliuya's property was too low to merit damages. RWE said that if granted, the claim would have had 'unforeseeable consequences for Germany as an industrial location, because ultimately claims could be asserted against any German company for damage caused by climate change anywhere in the world.' In their case, Luciano Lliuya's attorneys cited an analysis that found RWE's mines and power stations were responsible for 0.47 percent of all emissions produced by people in the industrial era. As a result, they claimed that the energy firm was liable to pay around $20,000 toward the building of a protective drainage system for Huaraz, about 0.47 percent of its projected total cost. The city is at risk of catastrophic flooding from Laguna Palcacocha, a pool of melted glacier water that has swelled in recent decades as the nearby Palcaraju glacier melts. According to an attribution study published in the journal Nature Geoscience in 2021, the melting of the Nevado Palcaraju glacier would be virtually impossible in a world without climate change. At any moment, the lake could burst its banks and send a deluge of nearly 2 million cubic meters of water toward Huaraz below. About 50,000 people live on the banks of the Quilcay River, a high hazard zone where the flood could be strong enough to sweep away small brick and adobe homes. In 1941, a glacial lake outburst flood killed one-third of the city's population. The Palcacocha drainage project is intended to improve lake's existing flood defenses and protect thousands of Huaraz homes — including Luciano Lliuya's — from the risk of a repeat. In a statement Wednesday, Luicano Lliuya said that while he was disappointed by the ruling, he believes the judgment opened the door to holding polluters legally responsible for the harm they have caused. 'My case has shifted the global conversation about what justice means in an era of the climate crisis, and that makes me proud,' he said.
BreakingNews.ie
28-05-2025
- General
- BreakingNews.ie
German court rules against Peruvian farmer in landmark climate lawsuit
A German court has ruled against a Peruvian farmer in a landmark climate lawsuit where he claimed that global warming fuelled by energy company RWE's historical greenhouse gas emissions put his home at risk. Farmer and mountain guide Saul Luciano Lliuya said that glaciers above his hometown of Huaraz, Peru, are melting, increasing the risk of catastrophic flooding. Advertisement RWE, which has never operated in Peru, denies legal responsibility, arguing that climate change is a global issue caused by many contributors. The state court in Hamm, in western Germany, dismissed the lawsuit on Wednesday. The case has been going on for a decade. Mr Lliuya cannot appeal the ruling further. Experts said that the case had the potential to set a significant precedent in the fight to hold major polluters accountable for climate change. RWE argued that the lawsuit is legally inadmissible and that it sets a dangerous precedent by holding individual emitters accountable for global climate change. Advertisement It insists climate solutions should be addressed through state and international policies, not the courts. Judges and experts from Germany visited Peru in 2022.
