French Court Rules Boycott of SodaStream Illegal

Image by getty images
A pro-Palestinian group’s campaign to boycott the products of the Israeli SodaStream company violates French law, a Paris court ruled.
The ruling was handed down on Jan. 23 by the French capital’s Tribunal for Grand Instances, which fined the group about $9,000 and ordered it to remove calls to boycott SodaStream and its agents from the group’s website.
The judge made the ruling in a lawsuit that S.A.S OPM France, which represents SodaStream, brought against the France Palestine Solidarity Association last year in connection with a campaign the association launched in 2010 on its website and in local papers in the Nantes region.
It encouraged consumers to boycott SodaStream, a producer of home devices for the production of carbonated water whose factory is based in Maale Adumim in the West Bank, and its French distributor, the Nantes -based OPM firm.
The campaign violated French law because it falsely claimed the company was deceiving customers and was guilty of fraud, read the 10-page ruling, which JTA obtained.
The judge ordered the association to pay OPM about $5,500 and another $3,400 to cover legal costs.
“While this action is legal when it is done in defense of clients, it is illegal when it becomes abusive, notably when it is pursued for ends other than the protection of consumers or disproportionately,” the ruling said.
The campaign included videos placed by the association on YouTube and ads in local papers accusing OPM of defrauding clients. The judge rejected arguments put forth by the pro-Palestinian association that its actions were protected under France’s 1881 law on freedom of the press, saying that the campaign was false and targeted a firm’s commercial interest.
For this reason, it violated France’s tort law, or Article 1382 of the Civil Code, which states that “any loss caused to a person through the behavior of another must be repaired by the person whose fault it was that the loss occurred,” the judge wrote.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Most Popular
- 1
Fast Forward The NCAA men’s Final Four has 3 Jewish coaches
- 2
Fast Forward Cory Booker proclaims, ‘Hineni’ — I am here — 19 hours into anti-Trump Senate speech
- 3
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 4
Fast Forward Cory Booker’s rabbi has notes on Booker’s 25-hour speech
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Texas bakery reportedly becomes first bagel shop to be named James Beard Award finalist
-
Fast Forward ‘That’s Simchas Torah’: The Jewish Val Kilmer moment you might have missed
-
Opinion I co-wrote Biden’s antisemitism strategy. Trump is making the threat worse
-
Fast Forward From ‘October 8’ to ‘The Encampments,’ these new documentaries illuminate the post-Oct. 7 American experience
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.