For the first time in Switzerland, a media corporation was ordered by court to surrender profits from personality-violating reporting. For the first time, the profits earned could be assigned to and derived from individual articles. A precedent case with signal effect for that part of the media industry that previously could operate personality-violating campaigns as a business model.
On 24 December 2014, the Blick front page publishes the headline with photos and names of those involved. It marks the start of a media campaign. Over 150 Blick articles and videos follow – without consent, generating millions of clicks and massive advertising revenue for the corporation.
The Headlines of the Blick Campaign 2014–2015
The Swiss Press Council rules: Blick violated private and intimate privacy; the identifying reporting should never have occurred. Blick does not publish this ruling. In the same year, the lawsuit for profit disgorgement under Art. 28a para. 3 ZGB is filed – the first-ever application of this legal instrument against a Swiss media corporation.
The Zug Cantonal Court rules: Blick committed "severe personality rights violations"; the identifying article from Christmas Eve 2014 constituted a "gross intrusion into intimate privacy." Publishing names and photos was wrong. Ringier appeals.
When it becomes clear that Ringier will not accept the ruling, Fairmedia launches a crowdfunding campaign. 1,000 people participate, raising over CHF 60,000 in short order. This enables the continuation of the proceedings.
The High Court confirms the ruling on appeal: intimate privacy was violated "in a serious manner." Ringier accepts. Blick writes on its front page: "Apology, Jolanda Spiess-Hegglin." It marks the end of the Blick campaign – and the beginning of the profit disgorgement lawsuit.
The Zug Cantonal Court affirms the profit disgorgement claim: Ringier must disclose the figures. Four personality-violating articles from the original Blick campaign are identified. The path to calculating and surrendering digital profits is paved.
Ringier commissions three internationally recognised experts to prepare a report on the calculation method. Appeal hearing at the High Court. Ringier contests the ruling.
The High Court confirms the ruling. Ringier AG is ordered to surrender unlawfully obtained profits from personality-violating reporting. For the first time in Swiss legal history, a media corporation must bear an economic price tag for personality rights violations.
The profit disgorgement ruling concerns four articles. In total, Blick published over 150 pieces as part of the campaign. A campaign lawsuit for the remaining articles is in preparation. The precedent has been established – applying it to the entire campaign is the next step.
Published are exclusively publicly accessible court rulings and official press releases.
Final and binding. Ringier accepted the ruling and apologised publicly.
Appeal by Ringier to the High Court pending.
Art. 28a para. 3 of the Swiss Civil Code has provided since 1985 that unlawfully obtained profits from personality violations must be disgorged. In practice, this provision remained a dead letter for media victims for nearly four decades. Media corporations systematically prevented precedent rulings through out-of-court settlements – whenever profit disgorgement loomed, they offered a deal. This case breaks that pattern for the first time: a media corporation is judicially ordered to disgorge profits it earned through unlawful intrusions into a person's intimate privacy.
In 2015 alone, Ringier AG generated 167 articles from the unresolved incident at the Zug Landammann celebration. The Court of Appeal found in second instance that Blick had violated the complainant's intimate privacy "in a grave manner" – the identifying coverage of a suspected sexual offence with name and photograph should never have been published. The profit disgorgement ruling covers four of these articles. A campaign lawsuit for the remaining approximately 150 articles is in preparation and will apply the principle to the full extent of the campaign.
The case forces, for the first time, the development of a judicially verifiable method for calculating digital advertising profits from individual articles. Ringier argued – as all media corporations had before – that no profits were attributable to single articles. Three internationally recognised experts produced a report demonstrating how push alerts, page impressions, and advertising revenue can be calculated per article. The media industry's claim that online profits cannot be broken down to individual articles is thereby refuted. A measurable risk now exists for the entire industry.
Until now, personality violations by media were economically rational for publishers: profits from clicks and advertising far exceeded any threatened sanctions. Compensation for emotional distress in Swiss media law typically ranges in the low five figures – a negligible amount against revenues in the millions. The profit disgorgement ruling fundamentally changes this calculus. It compels publishers to surrender the entire economic yield of a personality violation. This is not damages but the return of unlawfully earned profits – and thus a structural corrective precisely for sustained, personality-violating campaigns, such as those in boulevard media – until the Ringier ruling – were also common in Switzerland.
The Court of Appeal held that a person who reports a sexual offence to the police does not thereby "forfeit their intimate privacy protection." Were the media corporations' argument accepted, victims of sexual offences would have to expect at all times that filing a criminal complaint could trigger identifying press coverage – making them public figures against their will. The court made clear: victim protection takes precedence. The case thus also establishes clarity for future victims that filing a criminal complaint does not mean the loss of intimate privacy.
The Swiss media industry watches this case with good reason. Profit disgorgement as an enforceable legal instrument changes the risk calculus of every publisher that generates clicks through personality violations. That Ringier initially appealed the ruling while a second profit disgorgement complex simultaneously builds in the Tamedia case shows: the precedent is already taking effect. It is no longer about a single case, but about whether the systematic exploitation of others' intimate privacy remains a viable business model.