The commercial court in Belgrade rejected the lawsuit that the publisher of Kurir filed against KRIK, claiming that we are unfair competition and that we are ruining the reputation of this tabloid, according to the research portal.
The lawsuit followed after KRIK’s portal Raskrikanvane, which verifies the accuracy of information published in the media, determined that Kurir published 163 false, unfounded or manipulative news on its front pages in 2020. The verdict is of first instance and Kurir can appeal against it.
Judge Ljiljana Stojković pointed out in the verdict that the allegations of the lawsuit that there was a violation of competition on the media market are unacceptable because the information published on the Raskrikanjana website cannot fall under the application of the Law on Trade, on the basis of which the lawsuit was filed. SCREAM.
“The defendants are not traders and cannot be in a competitive relationship as prescribed by the said law,” the judge concluded.
She also stated that KRIK “is a non-profit organization established for the charitable purpose of achieving generally useful goals in the field of journalism.”
The ruling is not final and Kurira publisher Mondo Inc can appeal it.
In addition to KRIK, the Kurir lawsuit from 2021 also included the Cenzolovka portal, the Danas newspaper, the Association Center for Intercultural Communication and the Javni servis portal, against which the lawsuit was later withdrawn. With the lawsuit, he also demanded that we pay them a total of 11 million dinars.
For years, the Raskrikanvane portal has been publishing an analysis of the front pages of daily newspapers in Serbia, according to the evaluation methodology available on the site.
The courier is often the power’s hammer to deal with political dissidents or independent journalists, so it often publishes false and unverified news and thereby violates the journalistic code.
Due to the analysis of Raskrivanja, Kurir filed another lawsuit against KRIK at the end of last year in the Commercial Court – also due to alleged unfair competition and damage to reputation. This lawsuit also covers the media that reported the data from our analysis – that there were at least 122 unfounded, biased or manipulative news on the front pages of Kurir in 2022. With this lawsuit, Kurir is also asking for 11 million dinars to be paid to him.
In recent years, the number of so-called SLAAP lawsuits against KRIK has been increasing – these are lawsuits filed by people in power or close to them, which are initiated only to intimidate journalists and prevent the media from publishing new revelations.
Among those who initiated proceedings against KRIK are the godfather of the state president Aleksandar Vučić, Nikola Petrović, former MUP state secretary Dijana Hrkalović, Predrag Koluvija, the owner of “Jovanjica” who is on trial for growing more than a ton and a half of marijuana, controversial businessmen Bogoljub Karić and Stanko Subotić, as well as the company “Mineco”.
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