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Christian Wulff, a former German Federal President who resigned in February 2012, caught the attention of the public in May 2015 with his announcement that he was back together with his ex-wife Bettina Wulff. Following this, the press published a photograph of him pushing a cart at the parking lot of a supermarket next to his wife, Bettina Wulff. Mr. Wulff felt hurt in his right to privacy. He filed a lawsuit aiming to prohibit the publication of this private photo. In first and second instance Mr. Wulff was successful; the German Federal Court now overruled the previous decisions and decided that Mr. Wulff’s right to privacy were not infringed by the publication of the photo.
Continue Reading The Right to Privacy of a Former Federal President

The former governing mayor of Berlin, Klaus Wowereit, a member of the German Social Democratic Party, SPD, has suffered a legal defeat in his year-plus battle with the German publishing house Axel Springer. On 27 September 2016 (VI ZR 310/14), the German Federal Court of Justice ruled that pictures of Wowereit in a Berlin bar on the eve of a vote of no confidence against him could be published in Springer’s daily magazine BILD without the former mayor’s consent.
Continue Reading Former Mayor of Berlin Suffers Painful Defeat Over the Publication of Alleged Partying Pictures in German Magazine

On 13 October 2015, the German Federal Court of Justice (VI ZR 271/14) ruled that ex-lovers can demand the deletion of intimate or revealing photographs and videos once a relationship is over. In the case concerned, a man, a professional photographer, had taken several erotic photos and videos of his female partner, to which she had consented at the time. The pictures and videos showed the woman naked both during and after sexual intercourse. She had also taken some of the pictures herself. After their relationship ended, the woman demanded that all of the intimate media be deleted, but the man refused to do so.
Continue Reading Ex-Lovers Must Delete Intimate Photos of Partners After a Break-Up According to the German Federal Court of Justice