In December, the federal government passed a bill against intimidation lawsuits. What would it do if Donald Trump demanded $10 billion from a medium-sized Berlin media publisher?
In real life has Donald Trump sued the British broadcaster BBC for $10 billion in damages in mid-December. The BBC broadcast a documentary in 2024 in which Trump’s speech before the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021 was edited together as if Trump had directly called for violence. The BBC acknowledged the mistake, took the documentary down, apologized and even gave it Resignations at the top of the station. Nevertheless, Trump sued the broadcaster in a US court. The lawsuit is widely seen as an attempt to intimidate the BBC and other media outlets.
But what would happen if Trump sued not only the BBC, but a (fictional) medium-sized Berlin publisher that sells “the media product” – let’s call it Mep-Verlag – because the BBC documentary was briefly shown on the Mep website? Let’s assume that Trump would also demand $10 billion from this publisher, more than a hundred times Mep’s annual sales.
Now you could say that Trump will lose the case anyway. He will never, ever get $10 billion in damages. Then the Mep publishing house doesn’t have to pay or only has to pay a small, manageable sum. But the publisher has the risk, the hassle and the effort to defend itself. That can be intimidating.
A legal slap in the face
In order to help those affected, the EU passed a directive in 2024 that the EU states must now implement into national law, the so-called anti-slapp directive. “Slapp” stands for “Strategic Lawsuits against Public Participation”. And of course the abbreviation is intended to be reminiscent of the English word “slap”.
For reasons of competence, the EU directive is limited to slap lawsuits with a cross-border connection. Also that one German draft law implementing the directive is limited – contrary to what was initially planned by Justice Minister Hubig – to international lawsuits. In the case of a lawsuit brought by the US President against a German publisher, there is of course a cross-border connection.
But now it depends on where Trump is suing. The BBC was sued by Trump in a Florida court. Of course, a German law does not apply there. The German legal system would only be affected if Trump wanted to have a judgment from Florida enforced in Germany, for example by seizing the Mep publishing house.
A German law could protect against such judgments. However, the federal government has a special regulation for such cases waived because foreign judgments that violate the so-called “ordre publique” (the basic guarantees of the German legal system) are not enforced in Germany anyway.
Let us therefore assume that Trump is suing in Germany, before the Berlin regional court. The planned “law on protection against obviously abusive lawsuits” would in principle be applicable here.
Not a deterrent for Trump
But when is a lawsuit abusive? In the first version of the bill, a key requirement was that “unfounded” claims be pursued, meaning that the lawsuit would not be successful. On the one hand, this cannot always be predicted with certainty. Above all, this premise was a bit quixotic. Anyone who wants to intimidate others with lawsuits usually doesn’t invent fake accusations, but rather looks for real mistakes in the other side in order to then harassingly constantly file new lawsuits or sue for intimidatingly high sums. Trump’s lawsuit against the BBC is also based on a specific mistake made by the BBC.
However, the German draft law that has now been passed is more cleverly constructed. Here, when asking whether a lawsuit is “abusive,” the court should only “take into account” whether the plaintiff is “pursuing obviously unfounded claims.” Further indications could be excessive amounts in dispute, a large number of parallel proceedings or threatening behavior.
But what does the planned law against abusive intimidation lawsuits bring? The court could then impose a special court fee on the plaintiff. In a lawsuit for 10 billion dollars (equivalent to 8.5 billion euros), that would be several million euros.
But it is doubtful whether Trump would be deterred by this. After all, if he largely loses the case, he would have to cover a large part of the court costs, his own legal fees and the legal fees of the other side anyway. So there is already a cost risk of similar dimensions.
The draft law also stipulates that the court ruling must be published. However, the resulting deterrent effect is low because the judgment must be anonymized before publication for data protection reasons.
Law has more of a symbolic effect
Several procedural aids are useful in the draft law. Slapp lawsuits must be decided particularly quickly in order to keep the time of the burden short. The defendant (here Mep-Verlag) should not only be reimbursed the statutory legal fees from the plaintiff, but also higher hourly rates if necessary. However, for lawsuits seeking $10 billion in damages, the statutory fees are very high because they are based on the value in dispute.
The Ministry of Justice summarizes its approach as follows: “The legal proceedings should become more expensive for the plaintiff and at the same time it should be easier for the defendants to get reimbursed for costs they have incurred.” The ministry assumes “that this will have a deterrent effect and that complaints of intimidation will be discouraged.”
Nice dream. If Donald Trump comes up with the idea of suing a media outlet or activist in Germany, this law will hardly stop him. The law has a more symbolic effect.
It is therefore much more important that those affected, such as Mep-Verlag, remain level-headed and use the legal dispute to make themselves and their concerns known and to expose the opposing party who is suing. Of course, with completely unscrupulous plaintiffs like Donald Trump, even that will fall flat.
But there is still the chance to mobilize your own supporters, expand your base and collect donations. Even if you cannot weaken Trump, sued journalists, publishers and initiatives can still emerge stronger from such a dispute. Without the new law. The Mep publishing house could then even thank Donald Trump for the publicity.