Gennaro Sangiuliano – €150,000 Fine (Italy, 2025)

= In the summer of 2024 Italian media caught wind of a romantic affair between the Minister of Culture and an entrepreneur who was engaged by the Ministry as an external consultant. The case erupted into a political scandal that led to the Minister’s resignation amidst allegations of conflicts of interest. Among others, the scandal was covered by Report, a well-known TV show dedicated to investigative journalism. The show was broadcasted by RAI (Italy’s public broadcaster and the controller for the case). In December 2024 an episode of Report examined rumors that before his resignation, the Minister terminated the consultant’s contracts under undue pressure. As proof of these allegations, the show broadcasted excerpts of a phone conversation between the Minister and his wife. In the conversation, the Minister's wife demanded that her husband terminates all of the consultant’s contracts with the Ministry and warned him that if he had not done so, she would have brought the matter to the attention of the Ministry’s Head of Cabinet. According to other evidence presented by the show, the Minister terminated one of the consultant’s contracts on that very day. = The former Minister and his wife filed separate complaints against the broadcaster, claiming that their private conversation was published illegally. In its defense, the controller claimed that the broadcasting of the recording was lawful and constituted an exercise of the freedom of expression in the context of investigative journalism. In this regard, the controller claimed that Report needed to broadcast the conversation in order to substantiate the rumors that the Minister might have acted under pressure. The controller also claimed that the subject matter of the investigation was of public interest, as it was possible that Minister exercised his powers of Minister under pressure from his wife. During the investigation the DPA found that the conversation between the former Minister and his wife had not been i