Gravenreuth sentenced

German newspaper Der Spiegel reports that Mr. Gravenreuth, a lawyer well-known in Germany for suing in other people's stead (even if they didn't request this litigation), has been sentenced in one case for fraudulent behaviour (I hope my translation of the German legal terms matches, keep in mind, IANAL). The penalty is 6 months of jail.

He still has the option of appeal, though...

It will be interesting to see how this goes. To my un-trained eye, it definitely looks like this lawyer is making a living off of exploiting a part of our legal system. And in this case he sued the maintainers of a newsletter, because he received a challenge-response message when someone subscribed him to this newsletter... Without this message, he would have been on the list! They showed what everyone in IT sees as due diligence, and then get sued by him...?!

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Ruth Less writes: http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/95843 This is only half the story. He allegedly tried to shut down their website (basically the website of a larger German newspaper) and succeeded with a restraining order (?) against them. (Restraining them not to send him more email, I assume.) They paid a small fine to get t over with -- but he used the money for other open bills, and complained to them for not paying. Their lawyer had enough, and sued him for fraud (and won). I started laughing at the point where the article quoted his defense for the "mistake" was "lack of legal knowledge" and the [24-digit] case reference number being too ambiguous... Makes you think, "Wait a second, isn't he a lawyer??!" And also you can bet -- what kinds of "open bills" were those he used the money on? Ones that he sent them, but they never paid, because he made them up and had no case? PS: For truth's sake, I don't know whether lawyer is the right word, it could also be solicitor or advocate or attorney...? What exactly is he?

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