The Provincial audience of Barcelona has rejected the appeal of the Assemblea Nacional Catalana (ANC) against the order of the commercial court 11 of Barcelona in which the judge ordered, so interim, the closure of the web Consum Estratègic and the cessation of the campaign of boycott of products from outside that promulgated the above-mentioned organization. In a car reported some days ago, the Hearing dismissed the appeal of the ANC –to which costs– and confirms the interim measures of the court Amagoia Serrano that I had requested Foment del Treball.
The case dates back to a little more than a year, when the ANC, the association of independence presided over by Elisenda Paluzielaunched a campaign called Consum Estratègic in which he encouraged the catalans to buy the products of companies related to the self-determination and secession of Catalonia, logically at the expense of others whose leaders or owners do not comulgaran with those ideas.
Political motivation
“The campaign sought to expel from the market the companies that the ANC was considered not related”
Foment, chaired by Josep Sánchez Llibre, reported to the ANC before the Autoritat Catalana de la Competència, and appealed also to the commercial courts on the grounds that the campaign worked against the competition. Last December, the judge put a stop to the proclamations of the ANC and ordered the closure of the web that called for a consumption selective for political causes.
Now, the Audience gives full validity to the facts certified by the judge as “the ANC took a few circumstances of social and political very certain to encourage consumers and businesses of Catalonia to resolve their contracts or avoid business relationships with those who had called the campaign of fear, referring in a derogatory way to las companies in the Ibex, the BOE or the box of Bernabéu and to those who had transferred their domicile outside of Catalunya”.
The president of the ANC ,Elisenda Paluzie, and the coordinator of the commission Fem Republic, David Fernandez, during the presentation of the campaign (as QUIQUE GARCÍA / EFE)
This practice, continues the Hearing, fits in the law of unfair competition defined as a boycott, in this case aimed to “discriminate against those who do not share a political project”. The Hearing notes, moreover, that the invocation of the freedom of expression on the part of the ANC collides in this case with the principle of freedom of enterprise and the exercise of free competition referred to above.
In terms of the need or not of adopting the precautionary measures, Hearing aligns well with the judge Serrano and remember that the ANC spoke of 148.000 contracts resolved and the way to continue with this practice. “Go the need to stop unfair conduct that can cause irreparable damagesince the goal of the campaign was the expulsion from the market of companies that the ANC was considered not related” to the unborn Catalan Republic.
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