Anderlecht demands €25,001 compensation from Hauspie

OTHER On Monday 20 March, the first hearing of the lawsuit filed by Anderlecht against journalist Jan Hauspie will take place. This is what news site Apache reports. According to the website, 1 euro in material damages and 25,000 euros in moral damages is asking Hauspie.


According to Anderlecht, Hauspie treated the club unlawfully in his infamous article in Humo, thus causing damage.

Dirk Voorhoof, emeritus professor of media law at UGent, thinks Anderlecht's lawsuit against Hauspie is a textbook example of SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation). Through SLAPP, powerful individuals or companies try to intimidate journalists by filing lawsuits against them (and dragging them out for ages). SLAPP actions do not target a journalist, medium or article specifically, but are also a signal to other journalists. That in future they better think twice before reporting critically about them.

Hauspie himself, meanwhile, still does not want to respond publicly to the charges brought against him by Anderlecht. In a reaction to Apache, he did let it be known that DPG, the media company behind Humo, fully supports him.