from regret the error
German magazine ordered to run correction after writing executive has "garish" taste in ties, doesn't know how many children he has fathered.
The headline pretty much sums it up. A German court has ordered a German business magazine to run a correction after it reported that Ferdinand Piech, the chairman of Europe's biggest car maker, Volkswagen AG, has a penchant for "garish ties with hunting motifs" and not a clue as to how many children he has fathered. Piech strongly disagrees. An Agence France Presse story in French and English went over the wire yesterday (we can't find a link):
A German court has ordered a business magazine here to print a correction to an article that described VW supervisory board chief Ferdinand Piech's taste in ties as garish and questioned whether he knew how many children he had.
The regional court in Duesseldorf ordered the weekly WirtschaftsWoche to print a correction to an article that claimed Piech wore "garish ties with hunting motifs" and did not know the exact number of his children from various marriages, a court spokesman said.
The magazine, owned by the Handelsblatt group, had published a picture of Piech wearing a tie with a picture of a man with a gun and an elephant.
It quoted Piech as saying in an interview that he had sired "about a dozen children. The exact number is not known".
The court accepted Piech's argument that his comment had been meant ironically and that the motif on his tie was not a hunting motif.
The magazine said it would appeal the ruling.
The French version of the article contained a few more details. We flexed our French muscles to discover that the offending article appeared in the October 13 issue of the magazine. Also, the court decreed that Piech would have a "right of reply" of 11 lines in the magazine, which seems a bit different from a correction. But perhaps that means he gets to approve the content of the correction. We'd love to hear from any German speakers out there who know more details.
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