Citroen Wolf sues Regus over database fiasco

Contract publisher Citroen Wolf Communications is suing office management company Regus for more than &£210,000 after Regus allegedly disrupted the production of its own in-house magazine.

Citroen Wolf, which also produces magazines for the Chartered Institute of Marketing and PricewaterhouseCoopers, claims that Regus failed to provide a full database of its offices and clients, as required in Citroen Wolf’s five-year contract to produce Regus’s magazine. This database would be passed on for direct marketing purposes to Citroen Wolf advertisers.

Citroen Wolf alleges that Regus also discouraged four advertisers from buying ad space in its magazine, and told two of them they would not be receiving a database of its clients.

Regus originally refused to hand over the database to Citroen Wolf after the deal was signed in October last year. It then said it did not have one, according to papers filed in the High Court.

It finally handed over a database in February this year, but this contained only 9,000 names, not 50,000 as previously indicated by Regus. The database was also incomplete and faulty.

A spokesman for Regus would not comment on the details of the case, but says: “Regus will vigorously contest any claim made against it.”

Citroen Wolf did not respond to requests for a comment.