OLG Frankfurt on the expression of opinion due to cooperation Querdenker movement

Among other things, the plaintiff provides consulting services as a so-called profiler and appears as a speaker at events. The defendant national daily newspaper reported on the plaintiff’s participation as an expert in a television program. In the summary proceedings, the plaintiff challenges, among other things, the statement in the report that it cooperates “with supporters of the lateral thinking movement.”

The Regional Court had granted its request for an injunction in this respect. The newspaper’s appeal against this decision was successful before the Higher Regional Court. The plaintiff was not entitled to injunctive relief, the OLG said in justifying its decision. The challenged statement is a value judgment and thus a statement of opinion. The term “lateral thinker” movement is fuzzy, he said.

It described, after the outbreak of the Corona pandemic, “an extremely heterogeneous initiative that cannot be clearly outlined, which denies the pandemic or the Corona virus, rejects protective measures by the state to combat and contain the Corona pandemic, and also spreads conspiracy narratives in the process,” the OLG defined. The defendant had concluded from statements and contacts with four persons named in the article that these persons were to be assigned to the movement.

The defendant had also provided factual evidence for this assessment. For its part, the plaintiff had indisputably cooperated with all four persons. The reader understands this to mean that the plaintiff is working with the individuals for specific goals or on the same thing together.

It remains open what the goals/areas/tasks of the collaboration are. It was sufficient that the four persons were listed on the plaintiff’s publishing website alongside others as “hand-picked authors” working for it. The article also offers the reader no indication that the cooperation is connected with the “lateral thinking movement”.

The decision cannot be challenged.