Madrid Commercial Court number 4 has ruled against the construction company ACS for the publication in a digital media of a piece of news explaining that it would file a lawsuit against Iberdrola. The Court understands that this is “an act of denigration” and unfair competition against the electricity company and obliges it to remove the news from the web version of the newspaper and to publish the ruling on the home page.
The news item referred to in the ruling was published in February 2021 and stated that Florentino Pérez was preparing a €2,600 million claim against Iberdrola for hiring the retired police commissioner José Manuel Villarejo to spy on him in the midst of the struggle for control of the electricity company’s board.
The court points out that the news was published in a news platform that is among the main Spanish media with the most unique users, and that the news was also of international importance. “With this publicity, ACS gave external transcendence and transferred to the market a negative fact for a competitor. We are, therefore, faced with a behaviour carried out in the market,” the ruling states.
Iberdrola was represented by Javier Cremades García, founder and president of Cremades & Calvo-Sotelo and president of the World Jurist Association.
