Strauss-Kahn fails to ban tell-all book but wins damages

PARIS (AFP) ― A Paris court Tuesday turned down disgraced former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s bid to ban a “despicable” book on his affair with the author, but ordered Marcela Iacub and her publisher to pay him 50,000 euros in damages.

In “Beauty and the Beast,” due to be released on Wednesday, Argentinean-born Iacub says she had a relationship with Strauss-Kahn from January to August 2012, in the midst of the scandal over accusations that he sexually assaulted a New York hotel maid the previous year.

Strauss-Kahn told the court earlier that the work was “despicable and false” and had wreaked “havoc” on his personal life. He said Iacub’s aim was simply to make money with a book that targeted a man “who is already down on the ground.”

Strauss-Kahn had sued Iacub and her publisher, Stock, for an attack on his private life and to prevent the book from going on sale.

The court rejected the demand for a ban but upheld the other plea for every copy of the book to carry an insert ― a move which will certainly delay the launch.

Strauss-Kahn’s lawyers Richard Malka and Jean Veil have not specified what they want it to say.

The 63-year-old Strauss-Kahn also sought 100,000 euros ($132,300) in damages and compensation from Iacub and Stock, and a similar amount from magazine Le Nouvel Observateur, which carried excerpts from the work.

The court ordered the magazine to pay 25,000 euros in damages and to publish the fact that it had been fined.

The book touches on the incident in New York and cases in France against Strauss-Kahn, as well as his relationship with Anne Sinclair, his fabulously rich wife of 20 years who announced last July that she had split from her husband.