We really believed that the small courtroom in Marseille was going to turn into an octagon this Monday afternoon. Instead of Booba and Karis were the first rapper’s lawyers on one side, and the lawyer for Magali Berdah and DemDem, Gims’ wife, on the other. From the start, the two lawyers multiply the invectives. At the helm, the tone rises very quickly, in front of a somewhat dumbfounded Instagram lawyer. The object of the conflict? The deletion of Booba’s OKLM Instagram account by the courts, at the request of the entrepreneur, head of Shauna Events, the main company that monetizes the audience of the biggest influencers.
On July 12, in a press release published on his social networks, the agent of the stars of reality TV Magali Berdah announced this court decision by order, obtained by his lawyer while his client claims to be the victim of cyberharassment on the part of of Booba. A decision which also comes after the publication of an interview with Booba granted to Release in which the artist positions himself as a whistleblower against the commercial practices that he considers misleading by certain influencers and their relatives.
The most followed artist in France
“This order is illegal, plague at the bar Me Patrick Klugman, one of Booba’s lawyers. The law has been violated by an ordinance and it must stop. To support his point, Booba’s lawyer first relies on a point of law, which requires that any closure of a social network account faces the subject of a contradictory request. A procedure which here was not respected according to him. “The applicants also claim to be victims of incessant cyber-harassment, defamatory, denigrating and humiliating remarks, adds the lawyer. But there is no complaint. I don’t have a single example. And at the end of an undocumented request for an illegal non-adversarial procedure, your court deleted the Instagram account of the most followed artist in France, with five million followers. This means that one in 15 French people followed the OKLM Instagram account. »
In addition to the cancellation of this summary court decision, Booba’s lawyers are claiming the sum of 15,000 euros in damages. “I ask you to put an end to a scandal and to allow a major artist to exercise his freedom of expression”, launches Me Klugman at the bar. “We are trying to make sleeve effects to leave Booba his freedom of expression which he uses and abuses again and again, plague in response the lawyer of Magali Berdah and DemDem, Me Anouck Aragones. He keeps posting obviously terrible content for victims of cyberbullying because that’s his way. »
Sextape and pass of arms
And to launch: “Booba had a personal Instagram account, “Booba official”. It was removed following the publication of a sex tape concerning a direct competitor, namely Fianso. Booba’s lawyers interrupt Me Aragones and ask for evidence. The latter is annoyed, before resuming to remind that, in the general conditions of Instagram, anyone whose account has been deleted cannot reopen a new one.
The scene, which looks like a passing of arms, is repeated once, twice, three times. The sound volume increases suddenly, to the point that President Me Vincent Gorini gets involved. “Do not fall into this trap,” he says to the lawyer. For her part, Instagram’s lawyer, Me Agathe Malphettes recalls that she only applied a court decision on which she cannot go back, especially since Booba was previously banned from the social network. The decision has been reserved for October 3.