Record damages award for Helmut Kohl

In a lawsuit brought by former Federal Chancellor Helmut Kohl against journalist Heribert Schwan and the Random House Verlagsgruppe, the Regional Court (LG) Cologne awarded the former Chancellor a record damages award of one million euros.

The subject matter of the legal dispute concerned quotations of the former Chancellor from the book "Vermächtnis – die Kohl-Protokolle" by his former biographer Heribert Schwan and his co-author Tilman Jens.

Schwan had unlawfully published the content of tape recordings containing partly candid remarks made by the former Chancellor about other politicians. The statements were taken from conversations recorded in 2001 and 2002 that Kohl had conducted with Schwan. Schwan was originally intended to serve as a ghostwriter in preparing Kohl's biography. However, following a dispute, the fourth and final volume of the memoirs was no longer published. Ultimately, Schwan unilaterally published the "Kohl-Protokolle".

Through the publication of these quotations, Helmut Kohl believed his right to personality to have been violated. The former Chancellor therefore sued, among other things, for injunctive relief and payment of monetary damages. Successfully.

Court decision – Helmut Kohl prevails at first instance

In three proceedings before the Regional Court (LG) Cologne, former Federal Chancellor Helmut Kohl prevailed against Heribert Schwan, Tilmann Jess and the Random House Verlagsgruppe (Press release of the Regional Court (LG) Cologne of 27.04.2017).

All three defendants were ordered to pay monetary damages totalling 1,000,000 euros (AZ: 14 O 323/15).

A prerequisite for the granting of monetary damages for a violation of the right to personality is, inter alia, particular severity of the respective infringement. In the view of the Chamber, this was satisfied by numerous passages and quotations in the book "Vermächtnis – die Kohl-Protokolle", which is why the damages award was set at a correspondingly high level. This is the highest sum that has to date been awarded for a violation of the right to personality under German law.

Furthermore, the court prohibited the publication and dissemination of 116 quotations from the book (AZ: 14 O 261/16) and thereby confirmed the decision from the preliminary injunction proceedings (AZ: 14 O 315/14).

Conclusion

The judgments are not yet final. It therefore remains to be seen whether an appeal will be filed against them.