ReleaseWire Connect

GRP Rainer Lawyers Tax Advisors, Cologne, Berlin, Bonn, Bremen, Düsseldorf, Essen, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Hanover, Munich, Nuremberg, Stuttgart and London grprainer.com/en explain: In its judgment of June 16, 2010 (Az.: VIII ZR 317/09), the German Federal Court of Justice (BGH) had to decide in what circumstances a lessee is entitled to refuse to pay lease instalments. The lessee should only be entitled to suspend lease instalments if he also judicially enforces the claim for repayment of the purchase price against the supplier. If the supplier does not accept the cancelation of the purchase agreement then this must be settled in court and is only definitive once the judgment in the warranty litigation against the supplier becomes legally effective.

GRP Rainer Lawyers Tax Advisors, Cologne, Berlin, Bonn, Bremen, Düsseldorf, Essen, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Hanover, Munich, Nuremberg, Stuttgart and London www.grprainer.com/en explain: In its legally binding judgment of June 6, 2013 (Az.: 12 U 204/12), the Karlsruhe Higher Regional Court (OLG) ruled that an insured party shall not benefit from any insurance coverage if it fraudulently misrepresents the relevant circumstances. According to the OLG, this is the case even if the actual circumstances would be covered by the insurance coverage.

GRP Rainer Lawyers Tax Advisors, Cologne, Berlin, Bonn, Bremen, Düsseldorf, Essen, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Hanover, Munich, Nuremberg, Stuttgart and London www.grprainer.com/en explain: The principles of equitable discretion must also be observed by employers in the context of employees being officially assigned. This was the decision of the German Federal Labour Court in its judgment of July 10, 2013 (Az.: 10 AZR 915/12). The claimant was initially employed on a temporary basis by the defendant. After the conversion of numerous employment contracts to long-term status, the employer decided to relocate a few of the formerly temporary employees, including the claimant. However, in selecting the eligible employees the defendant only included the employees who had previously been employed on a temporary basis.

GRP Rainer Attorneys and Tax Accountants in Cologne, Berlin, Bonn, Bremen, Düsseldorf, Essen, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Hanover, Munich, Nuremberg, Stuttgart and London grprainer.com/en explain: Moral rights as such include the right of publicity and the prohibition on distortion which are each derived from Copyright Law (UrhG). If, for example, a computer program is created by an employee in the course of carrying out employment duties or under the authority of the employer, such related rights will remain reserved with the employer even after termination of employment and restrictions on such rights, of course, must be observed.

GRP Rainer Attorneys and Tax Accountants in Cologne, Berlin, Bonn, Bremen, Düsseldorf, Essen, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Hanover, Munich, Nuremberg, Stuttgart and London www.grprainer.com/en explain: In a judgment from February 18, 2010 (file no.: 38 CA 12879/09), the Labour Court in Berlin decided that the dismissal of a compliance manager should be permitted, if the compliance manager acted unlawfully and also knew of the unlawful actions. In such a case as this, the burden of proof is carried by the employer, if the compliance manager had had no legal training or other employees had also had no reservations about the actions of the compliance manager or had not verbally reported such actions.

GRP Rainer Attorneys and Tax Accountants in Cologne, Berlin, Bonn, Bremen, Düsseldorf, Essen, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Hanover, Munich, Nuremberg, Stuttgart and London www.grprainer.com/en explain: With its ruling from 21 March 2013 (file no.: VII ZR 224/12), the German Federal Supreme Court (BGH) decided that a form provision which was being used in relation to a part-time sales representative and which provided for contract termination only after having observed a notice period of 12 months to the end of a calendar year, has been represented as constituting an unreasonable discrimination and should therefore be deemed invalid. The regulation on notice periods of termination would have become an integral part of the contract through the validity of the terms and conditions and subject to the control of the contract’s content according to the German Civil Code (BGB).

GRP Rainer Attorneys Tax Accountants in Cologne, Berlin, Bonn, Bremen, Düsseldorf, Essen, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Hanover, Munich, Nuremberg, Stuttgart and London www.grprainer.com/en explain: The Fiscal Court in Münster in its judgment from 22 May 2013 (file no.: 10 K 3103/10 E) decided that brokerage costs which are paid by the owners as part of a sale of a house may be included in the amount of work-related expenses that are written-off against rental income which the taxpayer achieves from leasing other properties.

GRP Rainer Lawyers Tax Advisors, Cologne, Berlin, Bonn, Bremen, Düsseldorf, Essen, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Hanover, Munich, Nuremberg, Stuttgart and London www.grprainer.com/en explain: The Claimant is the owner of a plot of land beside the cliff line in Rügen. He wanted to redevelop the old building there. The outline building permit applied for was likely rejected because stability was not guaranteed. In the end, the Claimant was seemingly granted the necessary planning permission on condition that a ground survey be implemented at the site of the old building. The Claimant subsequently requested that the Defendants, an architectural firm and the structural engineer, carry out the redevelopment project. These parties did not appear to implement the ground survey.

GRP Rainer Lawyers Tax Advisors, Cologne, Berlin, Bonn, Bremen, Düsseldorf, Essen, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Hanover, Munich, Nuremberg, Stuttgart and London www.grprainer.com/en explain: The Düsseldorf Regional Court (LG) (Az.: 14c O171/12) did not affirm an advertising agency’s accusations of plagiarism based on the egg-shape of chocolate marshmallows. The advertising agency’s action was dismissed and the producer of the sweets was also allowed to continue selling chocolate marshmallows in egg-shape. According to the LG, the matter concerned compact eggs that differed from the protected design of the advertising agency’s eggs. Chocolate marshmallows already existed in different shapes, so that in the Court’s view the range of protection afforded by the design developed by the advertising agency was commensurately small.

GRP Rainer Lawyers Tax Advisors, Cologne, Berlin, Bonn, Bremen, Düsseldorf, Essen, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Hanover, Munich, Nuremberg, Stuttgart and London www.grprainer.com/en explain: In its judgment of April 16, 2013 (Az.: 8 S 293/12), the Regional Court of Bonn (LG) ordered a bank to repay a “processing fee” that was charged to a consumer because of a loan grant. A contractual clause containing a pre-formulated section, according to which a “processing fee” is owed for the capital commitment resulting from the conclusion of a consumer credit agreement, could be invalid by reason of unreasonable disadvantage to the consumer.