Overview
- The Federal Constitutional Court overturned a Munich Higher Regional Court ruling that had restricted Spiegel’s coverage of a former Wirecard employee.
- The court held that suspicion-based reporting need not demonstrate a probability of conviction beyond an initial suspicion, especially in complex financial wrongdoing.
- Karlsruhe said lower courts failed to give sufficient weight to the strong public interest in investigating the Wirecard scandal.
- The justices found one Spiegel article had been mischaracterized as asserting facts rather than presented and contextualized as suspicion.
- The case was remanded to Munich for a new decision under constitutional standards, with no final determination on the plaintiff’s claims.