Поиск баланса между коммерческими и общественными интересами в практике Европейского Суда по правам человека по статье 10 Европейской конвенции

Прецеденты Европейского Суда по правам человека. 2017. Т. 43. № 7. С. 12–21.

Soboleva A. K.

The article is devoted to the case law of the European Court of Human Rights on unfair competition, calls to boycotts of goods and services, protection of commercial interests of enterprises and business reputation of owners and top-managers in the context of freedom of expression. Though the cases when the commercial interests come in conflict with the public interests are not numerous, the jurisprudence of the Court allows, however, to identify the trends and approaches, which can be used by domestic courts in adjudication of cases, where balancing exercise should be made between freedom of expression and protection of legal entities. In particular, the Court takes into account, whether the contestable statements expressed the opinion of the author or contained the information about possible facts, not yet proved or checked in court proceedings, whether the public interest in disseminating the information about the allegedly harmful activities of the enterprise really existed, whether criticism of a product as such (for instance, cigarettes) caused unproportional burden on a concrete producer due to association of the product with a particular brand, whether the legitimate aims of informing the public about one’ ideas could be reached without targeting one of the providers of goods and services, etc.

Keywords: freedom of expression, unfair competition, недобросовестная конкуренция, Свобода выражения мнения, ECHR, case law of the European Court of human rights, судебная практика Европейского Суда по правам человека