Court won't dismiss Bublil's suit against Channel 10

Moshe Bublil and the Club Hotel Group sue Channel 10 over a trailer for the show "The Source", which Bublil says slandered him.

By JOANNA PARASZCZUK
311_gavel (photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski)
311_gavel
(photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski)
The Tel Aviv District Court ruled Sunday to reject a request by Channel 10 to dismiss a NIS 4 million libel suit brought against the company by businessman Moshe Boublil.
Boublil and his two companies brought the suit against Channel 10 last November, claiming that a promotional trailer for the news show The Source had defamed them.RELATED:Channel 10 decides to relocate news operation to capitalChannel 10: Syrians circumventing reinforced border fences
According to Boublil’s lawsuit, the trailer asked: “Moshe Boublil made millions from gambling – but was that money made at the expense of the state?” – a reference to a NIS 67 million government grant Boublil received to build Club Hotel Eilat.
Boublil said the statements made in the trailer were baseless. Lawyers for Boublil and the Club Hotel group said the show’s producers had chosen to ignore facts presented to them and had aired a biased trailer defaming Boublil and his companies.
In an attempt to have the suit dismissed, Channel 10 claimed Boublil was suing for “strategic reasons” and slammed the amount of damages sought as “absurd.”
Channel 10 also argued for the removal of the Club Hotel companies from the suit on the grounds that their names were not explicitly mentioned in the trailer.
In refusing Channel 10’s request to dismiss Boublil’s lawsuit, Judge Yehudit Shevah ruled that Boublil’s suit was “not in any way trivial” and that she did not accept Channel 10’s claim that the businessman had filed the suit for strategic reasons.
Shevach also dismissed Channel 10’s claim that the trailer only referred to Boublil and not to the Club Hotel group.
In dismissing Channel 10’s request, the court also ruled that Channel 10 pay Club Hotel’s court expenses of NIS 7,500.