Berlin

A GERMAN lawsuit over a photo showing a Syrian refugee with Chancellor Angela Merkel has put Facebook Inc's hate-speech policies under scrutiny. But the high-profile case has also shed light on complaints that the company tries to avoid and delay lawsuits in the country.

Chan-jo Jun, a lawyer for the Syrian refugee suing in Wuerzburg to stop Facebook using the picture, is one of a number of lawyers that says the company aggressively relies on procedural tactics to stay out of German courtrooms. He said that Facebook routinely failed to reply to e-mail sent to its European headquarters in Dublin or even its German lawyers.