Freelancers working with a French publication have filed a lawsuit in a French court. L'Officiel has not paid freelance salaries for over a year, according to the statement. Freelancers point out that the magazine owes about 500 to journalists, photographers and stylists. Moreover, the class action lawsuit involves not only workers from France, but also citizens of the United States, Great Britain, Italy and Switzerland. The total amount of debt at the moment is about 2 million euros.
The legal aid group V pour Verdict is known to handle freelance cases. Lawyers are urging other employees to whom the publication owes them, to apply to them in order to combine everything into one class action lawsuit. At the moment, in the court of Paris there is a document according to which freelancers did not receive payment for their work, while some of them often had to spend their own money to complete the work. As for the photographers, a lawsuit will be filed on their part for the use of images in several versions of L'Officiel, protected by copyright and not paid for by Editions Jalou.
For the first time, freelancers reported that L'Officiel magazine was seriously delaying the payment of fees back in 2018. Commenting on the situation, L'Officiel Chief Executive Officer Benjamin Eimer noted that "in any company there are often delays in payments."