SAN FRANCISCO – A federal appeals court yesterday skirted answering whether Yahoo Inc. must pay a fine of about $15 million to a Paris court for displaying Nazi memorabilia for sale in violation of French law.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed a federal lawsuit brought by Yahoo in California challenging the fine levied five years ago for running an auction site in which French users could buy and sell the memorabilia banned in France. Yahoo asked the U.S. court to rule that the judgment could not be collected in America because it violated the company’s free speech rights.

In a 99-page decision, the court left open the central question of whether American-based Internet service providers are liable for damages in foreign courts for displaying content that is unlawful overseas but protected in America.

The court said it was unlikely the French would ever enforce the judgment and doubted Yahoo’s free speech rights under American law were violated.

Yahoo’s French subsidiary complies with French law, but a judge there nonetheless ordered the Sunnyvale based company to strip Nazi paraphernalia from the portal’s main site, Yahoo.com.

Yahoo eventually banned Nazi material as it began charging users to make auction listings, saying it did not want to profit from such material. But it continued to challenge the ruling, not in France but by filing a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in San Jose over the First Amendment issue.