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Palantir has lost a legal bid to force a Swiss magazine to publish its responses to articles detailing how the country’s government repeatedly rejected its services, in a case that has renewed scrutiny of its technology.
In a ruling on Friday, Zurich’s commercial court dismissed 22 of 23 counterstatement requests filed by the US data analytics company and its Swiss subsidiary, finding that only a single passage in one article warranted a published response from the company, which is chaired by Peter Thiel, a co-founder.
The dispute stemmed from two Republik articles that reported how government agencies had declined to adopt the company’s software, and raised concerns about issues including data sovereignty and legal compliance.
The reports, published in December and based mainly on freedom of information requests, examined Palantir’s years-long attempts to secure business with Swiss federal authorities.
The lawsuit has had a “Streisand effect”, drawing wider attention to Republik’s reporting and the Swiss government documents detailing repeated official concerns about adopting Palantir’s technology.
It attracted attention beyond Switzerland because it touched on broader European concerns about reliance on US technology providers for sensitive state functions.
Palantir, whose software is widely used by US defence and intelligence agencies, has faced growing scrutiny in parts of Europe as governments reassess their dependence on American technology companies.
The company has faced slowing growth in its international business amid European pushback. In the UK, its £330mn deal with the National Health Service has been subject to significant scrutiny, while London mayor Sadiq Khan vetoed a £50mn contract with the city’s Metropolitan Police.
Germany’s armed forces have excluded Palantir from contracts, while officials in Denmark and the Netherlands have similarly expressed a desire to uncouple from the US-based software group.
The data intelligence group’s lawsuit did not seek damages or allege defamation. The company argued that Swiss media law entitled it to publish counterstatements addressing what it described as inaccurate or misleading reporting.
The court mostly rejected those arguments. It concluded that most of the challenged passages amounted to journalistic interpretations, value judgments, characterisations or reporting of third-party allegations, rather than factual assertions that could trigger a right of reply.
Judges also found that many of Palantir’s proposed counterstatements went beyond directly contesting the articles’ claims and instead amounted to broader self-defence or corporate self-presentation.
The sole exception concerned a statement in Republik’s article “Why Palantir is becoming a risk for Switzerland”, asserting that Palantir’s Foundry software platform had originally been developed for US counter-insurgency operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. The court ordered Republik to publish a short counterstatement from Palantir disputing that claim.
Palantir said: “We welcome that the Zurich Commercial Court confirmed our right to publish a counterstatement. It’s a critical part of open debate in our society to hear both sides on important topics.”
The ruling means Republik prevailed on roughly 95 per cent of the case. The court ordered Palantir to bear 95 per cent of the SFr9,000 ($11,000) court costs and to pay Republik SFr9,900 in legal expenses.
