OLG Karlsruhe; 2020-05-13; 6 U 127/19
Decision by national courts in the field of European Union law — ECLI:DE:OLGKARL:2020:0513.6U127.19.00
Date: 2020-05-13
Subject matter: Judicial cooperation in civil matters
Origin: Germany

82020DE0513(51)_ENG_SUMJURE
JURE summary
JURE summary
A mattress manufacturer domiciled in Germany (hereinafter the ‘plaintiff’) filed an action against three companies belonging to the Amazon group domiciled in Luxemburg (hereinafter the ‘defendants’) seeking the issuance of an injunction in relation to unfair advertisements made by a third party on its website.
Within the Amazon partnership programme, the third party published links on its website leading to the offers of the second defendant and traders who were active on the marketplace of the third defendant. In the event of a successful purchase conducted through the link, the third party received a payment from the first defendant. The plaintiff claimed that the third party acted as a commissioner for the defendants and that the website of the third party preferred sellers of mattresses whose sales were connected with an attractive profit by the means of affiliates commission.
The Landgericht Mannheim (hereinafter ‘the Court of First Instance’), as the court seised under Article 7(2) of the Brussels I Regulation (recast) (1), dismissed the action citing its inadmissibility due to a lack of international jurisdiction.
The appeal lodged by the plaintiff with the Oberlandesgericht Karlsruhe (hereinafter ‘the Court of Appeal’) was found admissible and justified.
The Court of Appeal found that the Court of First Instance was correct to dismiss the application of the plaintiff.
Contrary to the opinion of the Court of First Instance, there was no lack of international jurisdiction. With regard to tortious conduct online, the respective content and information can be generally downloaded across the whole world. Under
established case law, where a breach of rules of fair competition online is concerned, the place where the harmful event occurred is the country where the respective online presence was intended to be effective, thus Germany in this case.
However, the defendants did not bear any liability as business owners due to the fact that the respective conduct could not be attributed to business organisational units of the defendants but a third party or a commissioner instead. The third party publishing the advertisements was not part of the business organisation of the defendants. In addition, the defendants had no enforceable influence over the promotional activities of the third party.
The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal of the plaintiff against the decision of the Court of First Instance.
(1) Regulation (EU) No 1215/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 December 2012 on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters.