Press Council reprimands Handelszeitung: naming names was wrong
The Press Council warns that a mandatory entry in the commercial register is not a voluntary disclosure to the public. It reprimands the Handelszeitung for violating the privacy of a named stock seller.
The Handelszeitung reported online on December 9, 2016, about investigations by the public prosecutor's office in Zug into the alleged fraudulent financing of the failed pharmaceutical start-up "Amvac". Share sellers would have diverted money from investors as commissions. Of the nine sellers under investigation for suspected fraud, the business paper named two of them.
One of them went to the Swiss Press Council to defend himself against this identifying reporting. The Handelszeitung countered: Anyone who is entered in the public commercial register as the sole member of the board of directors of a stock corporation cannot invoke the protection of his privacy.
The Press Council rejects this argument. The entry in the public-law commercial register is a legally compulsory entry. The editorial team cannot seriously interpret this as a voluntary step into the public domain. According to the Press Council guidelines, media professionals must respect the privacy of individuals unless the public interest demands otherwise. In order to warn potential investors about the alleged fraudsters, it would have been sufficient to mention the company names. And to report that the public prosecutor is now also investigating their owners.
