"Formula 1 boss Max Mosley has won his case for breach of privacy against The News of the World."
That was how the BBC News website reported Max Mosley's court victory relating to the publication of photos of him with prostitutes. The date: 24 July 2008.
Roll forward three and-a-bit years and that headline could well have been exhumed for another outing - albeit with a little updating to reflect the fact that Mr Mosley is no longer in charge of Formula 1 and the newspaper in question is no more.
The major difference is the location. In 2008 the scene of the action was the High Court in London. The story in November 2011 had moved to the 17th Chamber of the Paris Criminal Court where Mr Mosley was bringing further action against News International - but this time under French law, on the basis that 1,500 copies of The News of the World edition in question had been sold in France.
He won again.
This is not the first time that UK publishers have fallen foul of the French courts, which tend to be more protective of personal privacy. A precedent had been set earlier in 2008 when a Paris court ordered the publishers of The Sunday Mirror and The Daily Mail to pay 4,500 euros each to the French actor Olivier Martinez - at that time probably best known in the UK for being the former boyfriend of Kylie Minogue.
The papers had carried stories suggesting that Mr Martinez and Ms Minogue had rekindled their relationship which had ended the previous year. The actor claimed this was an unwarranted intrusion into his personal life.
The publishers argued that the French court did not have the right to hear a case against a UK newspaper, but the court claimed jurisdiction on the basis that the online versions of the papers were viewable in France.
A recent attempt by The Sunday Mirror to overturn the ruling failed when the European Court of Human Rights backed the French court's decision.
Although in each of these cases the financial rewards for the claimants were not great, the principle involved in pursuing a claim in privacy in another jurisdiction would seem to have been established if it can be shown that publication in some form had taken place in the country concerned. A particular concern for anyone publishing online.
In the UK we have become used to the term 'libel tourism' where claimants from overseas bring defamation actions in the London courts on the basis of, sometimes incidental, publication in Britain.
It is possible we will now see more individuals heading for the French courts to seek retribution from UK media organisations who they feel have violated their privacy in the minds of Britain's European neighbours.
Kevin Steele is senior legal trainer at the BBC College of Journalism.
