Exclusive-LVMH media unit refrains from lawsuit against Musk-owned X, sources say

By Tassilo Hummel and Mathieu Rosemain

PARIS -LVMH-owned newspaper group Les Echos-Le Parisien is not party to a lawsuit involving French media against Elon Musk's X that it previously said it would join, according to a court official, and four media industry sources said the LVMH papers no longer planned to sue the platform.  

Les Echos-Le Parisien and other French newspapers, including publications owned by Le Monde and Le Figaro, declared in November that they would lodge a lawsuit to pressure X to compensate them for currently unpaid-for content visible on the social media platform. 

Such fees, which are designed to ensure journalistic content remains widely available on digital platforms while offering publishers more financial stability, are required under the EU's copyright and related rights rules.

Pursuing the lawsuit would have pitted LVMH and its controlling shareholder and CEO, Bernard Arnault, against Musk, the world's richest man and key ally of U.S. President Donald Trump. Arnault attended Trump's inauguration.  

Two of the sources said Les Echos-Le Parisien informed high-ranking executives at the other papers that it wasn't going ahead with the lawsuit, without saying what motivated the decision.   

"We have indeed made such a threat against X in the past. Other discussions have been held since then," a Les Echos-Le Parisien spokesperson said, declining to elaborate further. 

LVMH declined to comment. X's French lawyer declined to comment. 

The three media groups jointly won a fast-track court order in May 2024 to compel X to release traffic data and advertising revenues allowing the papers to assess compensation levels for their content.

While Le Monde and Figaro jointly launched the case a month ago in a court filing, the LVMH unit was not part of the proceedings, according to a Paris judicial court clerk who has seen the filing.

EU RULES

Les Echos is France's leading daily business newspaper. Le Parisien is a general news daily. 

In an article published by Les Echos in November, Les Echos-Le Parisien CEO Pierre Louette said that X, "just like any other platform" that generates traffic and revenue from the paper's content, "must comply" with the EU copyright rules. 

"It's a question of safeguarding quality information, the very foundation of our democracy," he added. 

French publishers including Les Echos-Le Parisien had won a similar case before France's competition watchdog against Alphabet's Google in 2021. They also struck a deal with Meta on similar issues. 

"The law on related rights applies to everyone," Louette, who also chairs France's main newspaper publisher association, told Le Figaro in a recent interview. 

Last month, Les Echos-Le Parisien was part of a group of papers that announced a similar lawsuit against Microsoft's LinkedIn platform. A court date was not yet announced.

LVMH bought Les Echos in 2007 before taking over general news daily Le Parisien in 2015 as part of a wider push into the media landscape. Last year, LVMH took over Paris Match, a well-known weekly magazine covering politics, entertainment and celebrities. The conglomerate also owns a French radio station. 

Bernard Arnault last month praised a "wind of optimism" that he said was blowing through the U.S. following Trump's election and has expressed support for Musk's role in the White House.

Arnault said France "should do like in the United States and appoint somebody to cut down on bureaucracy."

(Reporting by Tassilo Hummel and Mathieu Rosemain; editing by Richard Lough and Edward Tobin)