"In March a Paris Correctional Court fined Jacques Guyard, the president of the parliamentary commission and a drafter of the 1996 National Assembly report on so-called sects, approximately $2,850 (20,000 francs) in response to complaints by three groups that were named in a parliamentary commission's June 1999 report on the financing of religious groups named in the original report. 

The court also ordered Guyard to pay approximately $12,850 (90,000 francs) in damages. The Federation of Steiner Schools, the New Brotherly Economy, and "le Mercure Federale" (an anthroposophical medical association) had filed a complaint against Guyard for slander for calling the groups "sects" in a June 1999 television interview. The court found that Guyard had made accusations against these groups when existing evidence did not warrant even a serious inquiry into their activities. 

The court noted that the parliamentary commission's report resulted from written declarations from persons claiming to be victims of anthroposophy, but that the parliamentary commission had not heard any of the claims in person, and that there was no supporting documentation for accusations that the groups had used mental manipulation, pressured persons to give them money, or used practical medicine that endangered lives. The court rejected Guyard's attempts to qualify his statements, and also rejected a request from Guyard's lawyer for parliamentary immunity."