Swisscom accepts court decision over NZZ

Swisscom is the country's largest telecommunications provider Keystone

Judicial authorities have overturned a temporary injunction obtained by Switzerland’s biggest telecommunications provider Swisscom to stop the Neue Zürcher Zeitung newspaper from publishing data stolen from the company.

The NZZ said on Friday it was satisfied but not surprised by the outcome.

Swisscom for its part said it accepted the decision, but pointed out the judge had made clear that any further piecemeal reports about the data leak could be in breach of the competition law.

  

The spat dates back to September 2013, when the Zurich-based newspaper announced that it had received four files of information. Names and contact details of Swisscom clients and the status of various projects were contained amid more mundane internal emails about barbecues and company cars, the NZZ reported.

Swisscom, worried about the possibility of sensitive client data being contained on the tapes – which went missing en route to being destroyed under routine circumstances – immediately filed a criminal complaint against persons unknown.

NZZ then published the names of a number of customers – some of them prominent Swisscom clients – in a December 20, 2013 article, which led to Swisscom asking for the temporary injunction against further publication of the data.

Swisscom added it was doing everything it could to ensure that all data in the NZZ’s possession was fully destroyed, and said it hoped that “the NZZ will continue to help establish exactly how the data tapes were stolen from Swisscom”. The company has also boosted its own security measures.

An NZZ spokeswomwan the newspaper now considered the matter closed.