On October 13, the Versailles Court of Appeal ruled against the OVH company which provided hosting for a website marketing Surrogacy. The complaint was filed in 2016 by the Children’s Lawyers Association (“Juristes pour l’enfance”). Consequently, OVH will no longer be able to provide hosting for the Spanish surrogacy site “Subrogalia” and this ruling should set a legal precedent. On June 13, 2016, the Children’s Lawyers Association had notified OVH of the unlawful online presence of Subrogalia and had called for it to be taken offline.
In a previous court decision on February 26, 2019, the Versailles High Court decreed for OVH to disconnect the Subrogalia website and to pay 3000 € for moral prejudice to the Children’s Lawyers Association.
At the time, the court expressed that: “The judges in this case note that it is obvious that the website content was clearly unlawful. It explicitly violated the unambiguous stipulations of French law banning surrogacy. Therefore, OVH was due to comply immediately.” OVH counteracted by filing an appeal.
The judgment comes at a time when similar cases are ongoing, due to the vigilance of several associations who filed complaints when the trade fare “Desire d’enfant” (Desiring Children) was held in Paris this past September. This event openly advertised surrogacy on French territory, in spite of the fact that the government had labelled surrogacy as a ” red line not to be crossed” during the national debates on the bioethics bill.
