Bulgaria: Insurance company Lev Ins files claim in Sofia City Court against Mediapool

The insurance company Lev Ins AD has filed a claim in the Sofia City Court against the online media organisation Mediapool for 1 million BGN (about half a million Euro). Lev Ins claims that the company had been negatively affected by information published on September 27, 2022, which cited the transcript of a meeting of the Council of Ministers.

The publication was based on a publicly available transcript of a government meeting discussing the Green Card system and the consequences if current issues are not resolved. Bulgaria is at risk of exclusion from the cross-border insurance coverage system (the Green Card system), due to the refusal of some Bulgarian insurance companies, Lev Ins included, to honour claims based on accidents abroad. Exclusion from the Green Card system would have serious repercussions on Bulgarian citizens who take their vehicles abroad.

During the period in which the article was written, an email was sent to the Lev Ins executive director seeking comment and the answers to a series a questions. The only response received by Mediapool was: "The information you presented in the article and the biased questions you asked will be answered in court."

This case is unprecedented in the recent history of Bulgarian journalism in terms of the size of the claim. The other publicly known claim against the media for a similar huge amount (also 1 million BGN) is the one made by Eurohold, owner of the insurance company Euroins, against the investigative online media Bivol.

"Insofar as in the case of Mediapool the claim for 1 million BGN was filed in full, and not as a partial claim, I can say that this is the largest claim against a media in the history of Bulgaria that I am aware of in terms of the claimed compensation on the basis of public information," commented the executive director of the Access to Information Program, attorney Alexander Kashamov, who will defend Mediapool before the court.

"It is deeply disturbing that we are going to court because of a quote from a minister, and that reflected in a transcript of a meeting of the Council of Ministers. As far as the case described in the article has been covered for years by Mediapool and the journalistic text presents all the facts completely correctly, it can be concluded, that the sole purpose of filing the case is to intimidate the media, but also the entire journalistic community and every independent voice that dares to speak about the problem with the Green Card system”, commented Mediapool editor-in-chief Stoyana Georgieva .