Schadenfreude J'adore! Société Générale sues Mail on Sunday

Couldn't happen to a nicer twat.

Société Générale sues Mail on Sunday

Bank says article claiming it was on the brink of disaster caused 'substantial damage'
John Plunkett
23 November 2011

One of Europe's largest banks, Société Générale, has begun defamation proceedings against Associated Newspapers over a Mail on Sunday article which falsely claimed the bank was in a "perilous" state and on the "brink of disaster".

In papers filed at the high court in London, the bank claimed it had suffered "substantial damage to its reputation and prejudice to its trade" as a result of the article, which appeared in the Mail on Sunday and on the Mail Online website on 7 August this year.

The paper quickly retracted the article and published an online apology accepting that the allegation was "not true".

But Société Générale said it was not satisfied by the apology, which it said was "hard to find" on the website and had not appeared in the newspaper.

It will claim damages to compensate for loss of business resulting from the article and for the "cost of mitigating the damage" caused by the article.

The submission by Société Générale's solicitors, the corporate law firm Herbert Smith, said the article suggested the bank was in a "dire financial position" and would collapse into insolvency without help from the French government.

It said the bank had been "seriously injured in its reputation and has suffered general and special damage" although it was "unable to particularise its claim for special damages [because] the work of gathering the data and evidence is ongoing at the time of pleading".

The Mail on Sunday said in a statement: "The Mail on Sunday has already apologised for publishing the article. Any claims for damages will be resisted." gruniad