OLG Frankfurt; 2015-06-30; 11 U 31/14
Decision by national courts in the field of European Union law — ECLI:DE:OLGHE:2015:0630.11U31.14.0A
Date: 2015-06-30
Subject matter: Judicial cooperation in civil matters
Origin: Germany

82015DE0630(51)_ENG_SUMJURE
JURE summary
JURE summary
The case dealt with by the Oberlandesgericht Frankfurt (hereinafter ‘the Court of Appeal’) concerned the extent of an agreement on the place of jurisdiction and the extent of a right of use to a computer program for creating contractual documentation. A company domiciled in Germany who was a developer of ‘contractual assistants’ for drafting contracts (hereinafter ‘the plaintiff’) filed an action with the Landgericht Frankfurt (hereinafter ‘the Court of First Instance’) against its former contracting party (hereinafter ‘the defendant’) from Spain seeking a cease and desist order, the destruction of data, numerical determination of compensation for damage and a declaration of entitlement to receive compensation for damage.
The plaintiff entered into a cooperation agreement with the defendant on the basis of which the defendant agreed to create a version of the German software for the Spanish market. Under this agreement, the parties were entitled to use the respective ‘legal content’ after the termination of the agreement. The international jurisdiction and the applicable law were thus provided for. The data was stored on the plaintiff’s server and linked to the web sites of the defendant. The defendant terminated the agreement properly and continued to offer translated and adjusted data to Spanish users.
The Court of First Instance upheld the cease and desist claims regarding the databases and dismissed the action in respect to the software. Both parties to the dispute filed admissible, timely and appropriate appeals against this decision. The Court of Appeal changed the decision of the Court of First Instance, dismissed the action and refused the appeal of the plaintiff.
The Court of Appeal found the Court of First Instance to hold international jurisdiction under Article 5(1) and Article 25 of the Brussels I Regulation (recast) (1) in conjunction with the cooperation agreement. If in doubt, the agreement on the place of jurisdiction also covered the opposing basis for tort liability. The termination of the cooperation agreement did not lead to the loss of jurisdiction, as the principle of forum prorogatum was, if in doubt, to be used exactly for disputes in such situations.
The Court of Appeal dismissed the action for different reasons. It found the use of jump links after the termination of the agreement not to be illegal, stating that the term ‘legal content’ included not only the content of the text blocks but the jump links as well due to their function of connecting the contents of the text blocks. In addition, the plaintiff’s request to be paid licence fees for the creation and use of data was not justified either, as under the cooperation agreement, the respective licence fee was a consideration for other contractual obligations of the plaintiff which ceased to be relevant upon the termination of the agreement.
(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.