jpk update

. . . BEHIND THE HEADLINES Bailiffs have appeared on his doorstep at home some 200 times , claims the support committee behind France’s leading investigative journalist. There are some 30 court cases lodged in progress against Denis Robert in what may prove to be one of the biggest banking scandals yet – even after the global economic crisis. So far, a total of six million euros are being claimed against Robert and various French media who have reported his claims of vast networks of corruption, much of it allegedly linking to the global economic crisis. Robert has been forced to start selling paintings, tshirts, and to step away from exposes and pen a novel to try and match steadily climbing legal bills. Most of the claims come from Clearstream, a clearing bank so secretive French judges have publicly denounced it as the “black box of offshore banking.” Some 500 journalists have scanned in their press cards and sent them into one of a handful of blogs set up to support Robert. Another...

Clearstream Wins Defamation Award Appeal Over French Journalist By Heather Smith Oct. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Clearstream International SA, the financial-settlement company owned by Deutsche Boerse AG , won 1,500 euros ($2,000) in damages from a French journalist in its appeal of an earlier 1-euro defamation award. The Paris court of appeals ruled that reporter Denis Robert and his publisher Les Arenes , or Canal Plus, the pay-TV unit of Vivendi SA that ran a documentary in 2001 featuring Robert's reports, erred when they claimed that Clearstream's numbered accounts facilitated illegal activities, according to a statement from Clearstream. Clearstream's goal ``has been to establish the truth about its activities and to defend its honesty,'' said Clearstream Chairman Andre Roelants in the statement. The appeals court's decision to increase the damages ``accomplishes that.'' An appeals court in Brussels last month fined Canal Plus Belgique 1 euro in a libel ca...