Television vs. Internet: The CJEU Clarifies Jurisdiction in International Defamation Cases

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has clarified which courts have jurisdiction in defamation cases involving dissemination through television across multiple countries and on the internet.

In a recent judgment delivered on 18 June 2026 (Case C-232/25, Idziski), the CJEU established a doctrine that supplements its already substantial body of case law concerning the forum of the place where the harmful event occurred in the specific field of breach of personality rights. Thus, in addition to the forum of the defendant’s domicile and the forum of the place of the causal event giving rise to the damage—the jurisdiction of which extends in both cases to the entirety of the damage caused, irrespective of where such damage occurred—the courts of the Member States in which the defamatory news item or content was disseminated also have jurisdiction, albeit only in respect of the damage sustained in each State (mosaic theory). In turn, the courts of the place of the victim’s centre of interests, where dissemination took place on the internet, shall likewise have jurisdiction to hear claims concerning the entirety of the damage.

In the Idziski judgment, the CJEU clarifies that, in the case of broadcast on television, the forum of the victim’s centre of interests cannot be relied upon to adjudicate the entirety of the damage; however, such forum may be invoked where dissemination occurred on the internet. In any event, the Court requires that the natural or legal person who is the subject of the defamation must be identifiable in order for the court seised to have jurisdiction.

Furthermore, it also confirms that only those courts having jurisdiction to rule on the breach in its entirety shall have jurisdiction to hear actions for general rectification, and not those courts whose jurisdiction is limited to their territorial scope.

Origin of the dispute: broadcast of a series and alleged breach of personality rights

The judgment arises from an action brought in Poland by a natural person and a legal person, both domiciled in that country, against two co-producers of a television series established in Germany, concerning an alleged breach of the personality rights of both the natural and the legal person as a result of the broadcast of that series on television and on the internet.

According to the applicants, the series breached their personality rights because it depicted the soldiers of a military unit, to which the natural person applicant had belonged, as anti-Semitic nationalists who had collaborated with the Nazis. The legal person applicant was, in turn, an association whose objects were, inter alia, to defend the dignity, reputation and memory of that military unit.

The series had been broadcast on television, first in Germany and subsequently in several other Member States, including Poland. It was also available online.

The applicants sought, inter alia, an order requiring the co-producers to issue an apology on the television channels in Poland and in the other Member States which had broadcast the series, as well as on the internet. In the case of the natural person, the applicant also sought an award of approximately EUR 5,750 as compensation for non-material damage.

Although the defendants raised a plea claiming that the Polish courts lacked jurisdiction, arguing that only the German courts had jurisdiction to hear that action, the Polish court of first instance dismissed that plea. The court delivered a judgment upholding the application in part, ordering the defendants to issue an apology on the relevant Polish and German television channels and on the internet. It also ordered that EUR 4,700 be awarded to the natural person applicant as compensation for non-material damage.

That decision was varied by the appellate court, which dismissed the natural person’s application in its entirety. According to that court, no harm had been done to the applicant’s honour because there was no link enabling him to be identified individually as the person depicted in the allegedly defamatory scenes of the series at issue.

All the parties challenged that decision by means of appeals on a point of law brought before the Supreme Court of Poland. In that context, the defendants plead, inter alia, that the proceedings are invalid because the Polish courts lacked international jurisdiction.

Criteria for jurisdiction according to the medium of dissemination and the actions brought

The Supreme Court of Poland referred two questions to the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling, to which we shall refer below, both relating to the criteria for jurisdiction; one concerning whether dissemination is through television or the internet, and the other concerning the nature of the remedies sought.

The first question concerned whether the forum of the place where the harmful event occurred (established in Article 5(3) of Regulation 44/2001 or the Brussels I Regulation, and now Article 7(2) of Regulation 1215/2012 or the Brussels I bis Regulation) should be interpreted as meaning that the courts of the Member State in which the centre of interests of a natural or legal person is located have jurisdiction to hear an action brought by that person seeking compensation for the entirety of the damage resulting from a breach of personality rights following the broadcast of a television series in several Member States.

The referring court also asked whether the same interpretation should apply in a situation where the same content had been disseminated on the internet and where it did not make it possible to identify, even indirectly, the natural person applicant.

The CJEU’s answer was as follows:

• With respect to television broadcasting, each Member State in which such broadcasting took place has jurisdiction to hear claims for the damage caused in that State (based on the doctrine established in the judgment of 7 March 1995, Case C-68/93, Shevill and Others). The rationale is that the place where the damage occurred is the place where the event giving rise to the damage produced its harmful effects upon the victim. In the case of television broadcasting, the breach occurs in the places where that content is broadcast and where the victim claims to have suffered injury to reputation (paragraphs 41 to 43 of the judgment). However, those courts shall not have jurisdiction to adjudicate the entirety of the damage pursuant to the criterion of the victim’s centre of interests (paragraph 48).
• With respect to dissemination on the internet, given that the placing online of content on a website is characterised by the ubiquity of that content, which may be consulted instantly by an unlimited number of users throughout the world (pursuant to the judgment of 25 October 2011, Cases C-509/09 and C-161/10, eDate Advertising and Others), unlike television broadcasting, the criterion of the victim’s centre of interests shall apply, and the court at that location shall have jurisdiction to hear a claim seeking compensation for the entirety of the damage caused (paragraphs 44, 45 and 49).

Furthermore, the criterion of the victim’s centre of interests, for the purpose of adjudicating the entirety of the damage caused in the case of dissemination on the internet, shall only be applicable where the content contains objective and verifiable elements which make it possible to identify, directly or indirectly, the person as an individual, in order to ensure the predictability of the rules of jurisdiction for the issuer of the content (paragraphs 50 and 51).

According to the CJEU, in the present case and subject to verification by the national court, the series at issue did not make it possible to identify individually the natural person applicant, although the legal person was, by contrast, directly identified (paragraphs 54 and 57).

The second question concerned whether the courts of the place where the harmful event occurred (Articles 5(3) of the Brussels I Regulation and 7(2) of the Brussels I bis Regulation) in cases of breach of personality rights as a consequence of dissemination on the internet and broadcast on television have jurisdiction to hear an action against the producer seeking, on the one hand, a non-pecuniary remedy aimed at eliminating and precluding the effects of such a breach and, on the other, a pecuniary remedy aimed at securing compensation for the non-material damage resulting from the broadcast of the series.

The CJEU’s answer in this regard is that an application for the rectification of data and the removal of content is a single and indivisible application, and therefore can only be made before a court with jurisdiction to rule on the entirety of an application for compensation for damage, and not before a court that does not have jurisdiction to do so (based on the judgments of 17 October 2017, Case C-194/16, Bolagsupplysningen and Ilsjan, and of 21 December 2021, Case C-251/20, Gtflix Tv)—paragraph 63 of the judgment.

By contrast, to the extent that an application for compensation is not a single and indivisible application, the courts of each Member State have jurisdiction to rule on a part of the damage caused in the territory of their own Member State—paragraphs 64 and 65—in order to obtain partial compensation, which may include eliminating or precluding the effects of the breach limited to the territory of that Member State.

Thus, in the present case, and having regard to the answer to the first question, the Polish courts would not have jurisdiction to hear the action brought by the natural person (not identified in the disseminated content) seeking a non-pecuniary remedy aimed at securing the rectification of the information in the series placed online; however, they would have jurisdiction in respect of the non-pecuniary claim aimed at eliminating and precluding the effects of the breach and the non-material damage resulting from the alleged breach of personality rights following the broadcast of the series on television, in both cases as regards Polish territory (paragraphs 66 and 67).

Scope of the Idziski judgment: consolidation of criteria and persistence of jurisdictional fragmentation

As noted at the outset, this new judgment in the Idziski case further develops the jurisdiction of the courts of the European Union in defamation cases with consequences in multiple States, on the basis of the forum for non-contractual obligations at the place where the harmful event occurred (currently established in Article 7(2) of the Brussels I bis Regulation).

With regard to that forum, it should be noted, on the one hand, that it constitutes an alternative ground of jurisdiction to the general forum of the defendant’s domicile (Article 4 of the Brussels I bis Regulation) and, on the other hand, that in so-called distance torts it covers both the place of the event giving rise to the damage and the place where the damage occurred. In such cases, both the courts of the place of the causal event giving rise to the damage and those of the place where the damage occurred have jurisdiction. Moreover, the situation becomes more complex where the damage has occurred in multiple States, a context particularly prone to defamation scenarios, and even more so where dissemination takes place on the internet.

On the basis of the foregoing elements, the criteria established by the CJEU’s case law to date regarding international jurisdiction in matters of breach of personality rights may be summarised as follows:

• The courts of the Member State of the defendant’s domicile and the courts of the place of the causal event giving rise to the damage shall have jurisdiction to hear an action seeking compensation for the entirety of the damage caused by the dissemination of defamatory content. In addition, they shall have jurisdiction in respect of any action for general rectification.
• The courts of the Member States where the content has been disseminated, whether through the printed press or through television, shall have jurisdiction to hear an action seeking compensation in respect of the damage caused in the corresponding States, limited to each of them (mosaic theory). Moreover, they shall not have jurisdiction to hear a hypothetical action for general rectification.
• In the case of dissemination on the internet, given its ubiquity, the courts of the victim’s centre of interests, provided the victim is identifiable, shall have jurisdiction to hear an action seeking compensation for the entirety of the damage caused in any country and shall also have jurisdiction in the event that an action for rectification is brought.
          
  In this regard, two observations are warranted. First, in matters of non-contractual obligations arising from breach of personality rights, mere access on the internet is a sufficient condition for conferring jurisdiction on the courts of the place where the damage occurred, without requiring additional conditions such as the existence of an activity directed at the specific Member State, which is required, for instance, in consumer matters. Second, the requirement that the content contain objective and verifiable elements which make it possible to identify the victim in order for the criterion of jurisdiction based on the centre of interests to come into play, while not novel—as it was already present in prior judgments—is questionable because its assessment necessarily requires, to a certain extent, an examination of the merits.

Aside from the fact that such criteria, far from being easily comprehensible, may amount to a veritable labyrinth, it is noteworthy that the Idziski judgment did not give particular consideration to the fact that, in current practice, a television broadcast is typically accompanied simultaneously by dissemination on the internet. Accordingly, the distinction upon which the CJEU insists may appear somewhat artificial. However, it should not be overlooked that the Court’s answer is determined by the specific terms in which the questions referred for a preliminary ruling were formulated.

In any event, and irrespective of the specific formulation of the questions, the referring court, as stated in the judgment itself, had observed in particular that, given the current state of technological development, there are no longer significant differences between the various types of media in terms of the reach of their respective dissemination channels, since the same content is often published on their usual channels and on the internet at the same time (“given the current state of technological development, there are no longer significant differences between the various types of media in terms of the reach of their respective dissemination channels, since the same content is often published on their usual channels and on the internet at the same time”—paragraph 18).

In response to this, the CJEU reasoned that, while the multiplicity of fora depending on whether dissemination occurs on television or on the internet may give rise to certain inconveniences, this is not a reason to decide otherwise, as the applicant always has the option of bringing an action for damages seeking compensation for all the harm caused before a court having jurisdiction to hear the breach in its entirety (“although there are disadvantages to having different courts ruling on various aspects of the same dispute, the applicant always has the option of bringing an action for damages, seeking compensation for all the harm caused, before the courts of the Member State either of the defendant or of the place of the causal event giving rise to the damage, namely the registered office of the producers of the series at issue (see, by analogy, judgments of 7 March 1995, Shevill and Others, C-68/93, EU:C:1995:61, paragraph 32, and of 25 October 2011, eDate Advertising and Others, C-509/09 and C-161/10, EU:C:2011:685, paragraph 43)”—paragraph 47).

Such a finding may appear somewhat surprising when the existence of parallel proceedings in different States is a situation that, as a general rule, courts seek to avoid or—at the very least—minimize, in order to reduce the risk of irreconcilable judgments.

In any event, the conclusion reached is that, at least in matters of breach of personality rights, the CJEU continues to accept the possibility of fragmentation of disputes and the existence of parallel proceedings in different States.