CIVB v. Alerte aux Toxiques et al.

Reference :

RG 20/01049 // RG 21/01405

Complaint date :

October 21, 2020

Status :

Provisional judgment

Place of jurisdiction :

France, Libourne

Plaintiffs types :

Economic stakeholders

Plaintiffs names :

Conseil Interprofessionnel des Vins de Bordeaux (CIVB)

Defendants :

Valérie Murat, NGO Alerte aux Toxiques

Lawyers for Health and Environmental Justice :

Antoine Carbonnier, Eric Morain

Case nature :

Criminal court

Type(s), Product(s), Active substance(s) :

All

Requests :

Complaint for collective denigration of the Bordeaux wine industry. That the defendants be ordered to cease disseminating documents entitled "Analyses de résidus de pesticides dans les vins" on the association's website and social networks, subject to a fine of €5,000 per day of delay... That the defendants be ordered jointly and severally to pay €100,000 to the CIVB for the damages suffered...

Name of the Court :

Judicial Court of Libourne, France

Jurisdiction level :

Decision date :

February 25, 2021

Decision nature :

Negative

Decision content :

The court says that the report published by the association is disparaging... Condemns the defendants to pay to the CIVB the sum of 100,000€ for the moral prejudice of damage to the image of Bordeaux wines... Enjoins the defendants to delete the dissemination of the documents... on the website of the organization and the social networks... under penalty of 500€ per day after a period of 15 days from the notification of the decision...

Legal basis :

Court Ruling :

Link to the ruling

Summary :

On 25 February 2021, the Libourne Court of First Instance ordered Valérie Murat and the NGO Association Alerte aux Toxiques to pay €125,000 in compensation for non-material damage suffered by the Conseil Interprofessionnel des Vins de Bordeaux and several winegrowers' associations, for publishing an article entitled "Analysis of pesticide residues in wines, results: the HVE still uses a lot of pesticides", which was deemed to be disparaging. HVE is a French label certifying that a product is of "high environmental value", and the whistleblower Valérie Murat is the daughter of a winegrower who died in 2012 of a cancer linked to the use of pesticides. The Court also ordered the defendants to stop circulating these documents.

The analyses published in September 2020 emphasised that HVE certification was "a decoy because it does not ban synthetic pesticides". The Comité Interprofessionnel des Vins de Bordeaux (CIVB) and around thirty professional organisations from the region had taken the case to court on 21 October 2020 for the denigration caused to Bordeaux wines, causing serious harm to wine owners and the wine industry.Valérie Murat appealed the decision in March 2021. The CIVB then asked for the appeal to be struck out on the grounds that the appeal procedure is conditional on the execution of the penalties imposed at first instance, including payment of the fines. On 10 November 2021, the Bordeaux Court of Appeal ruled that the sentence could not be appealed until the defendants had paid the €125,000 fine in full.

This is the heaviest sentence in Europe in a case of this kind.

Thanks to an online fund-raising campaign that collected 2,900 donations, the sum was reached at the end of October 2023. The spokeswoman for Alerte aux Toxiques, Valérie Murat, has therefore announced that she is now able to appeal against the judgement.

Scientific references :

No scientifice reference for this case.