Spatz Zeitung does not pay outstanding wages
Publitex, the publisher of the now-defunct Basler Spatz Zeitung, is apparently no longer able to pay the outstanding wages. Now, the employees who have been shortchanged want to take legal action to recover their wages.
According to an email obtained by Klein Report, publisher Dominique Hiltbrunner did not appear at a court hearing last Monday. The former employees are particularly upset that Hiltbrunner is obviously still living the high life. According to Klein Report, Hiltbrunner drove up to Basel in an expensive car with a chauffeur and often spent weekends in Paris, even when wages could no longer be paid and the end of the newspaper was already in sight.
Hiltbrunner took over the brand rights and the publisher Publitex from Robert M. Schmid, publisher of Münsterverlag Basel, in 2011. The young publisher wanted to turn the free newspaper into a magazine with journalistic standards (Werbewoche.ch reported). The Spatz Zeitung has now been discontinued, and the issue planned for the end of June could no longer be published. Hiltbrunner justified the closure with the advertising market: it had not been possible to gain the necessary share of the highly competitive Basel advertising market (Werbewoche.ch reported).
