DAPD drops lawsuit against AP - Out-of-court settlement
The German news agency DAPD has settled its dispute with its American partner, AP, out of court. AP had unilaterally terminated its licensing agreement with DAPD for the supply of text and images. DAPD had filed a lawsuit in response.
Melanie Ahlemeier, a member of the DAPD's editorial team, confirmed on Friday that the DAPD has now dropped the lawsuit, according to the German media blog Meedia. The hearing before a New York court scheduled for December 18 has been canceled. The DAPD is likely to have received financial compensation as part of the out-of-court settlement, according to the Meedia blog. Ahlemeier did not wish to comment on this information. The DAPD editorial team was surprised by the latest development.
DAPD will lose its AP license at the end of January 2013 as a result of the out-of-court settlement. While this license was described as life insurance for DAPD some time ago, it is now said that DAPD could make it without the AP license. DAPD filed for insolvency on October 2, 2012. Shortly afterwards, AP terminated its license to supply the German news agency with texts and images. At the same time, AP concluded a license agreement with the market leader dpa.
SDA is looking for solutions for Switzerland
The DAPD had ceded the rights for the distribution of AP texts in Switzerland to the Swiss Press Agency SDA. SDA is now looking for solutions with the new rights holder DPA in order to be able to continue to offer SDA customers AP reports around the clock.
Meanwhile, the sell-off in the DAPD Group continues. After DDP Direct (distribution of original text messages) and the French SIPA Group, the holding company HQTA, the former DAPD Media Holding, is now also selling off the picture agency DDP Images. The two managing directors of DDP Images, Katharina Doerk and Ulf Schmidt-Funke, are taking over the picture agency. HQTA will retain Airmotion, which distributes news about car on-board systems. HQTA works together with the Daimler car company. (SDA)
