LG Wuppertal; 2020-07-29; 3 O 195/19
Decision by national courts in the field of European Union law — ECLI:DE:LGW:2020:0729.3O195.19.00
Date: 2020-07-29
Subject matter: Judicial cooperation in civil matters
Origin: Germany

82020DE0729(51)_ENG_SUMJURE
JURE summary
JURE summary
A private person domiciled in Germany (hereinafter the ‘plaintiff’) filed an action against a provider of online payment services (hereinafter the ‘defendant’) seeking the reimbursement of the amounts the plaintiff wagered for online gambling games through the defendant.
The plaintiff opened an account with the defendant. Based on a cooperation agreement between the defendant and the operator of the gambling games platforms, the gambling games providers could both send and receive payments through the defendant.
The plaintiff claimed to have made payments exceeding EUR 6,000 through his account with the defendant to operators of online casinos and online betting agencies. Only later did he learn that online gaming might be contrary to the law in Germany. The plaintiff expressed the opinion that he had a claim against the defendant to be reimbursed for the payments he made.
The jurisdiction of the Landgericht Wuppertal (hereinafter ‘the Court of First Instance’) followed from Article 17(1)(c) and Article 18(1) of the Brussels I Regulation (1).
The defendant applied for the action to be dismissed citing no obligation on its part to verify the legality of payments that its clients sent to provider of online gambling games.
The Court of First Instance stated that the defendant had not breached any of its protection obligations under the payment services master agreement. The plaintiff initiated and authorised the payments himself and the defendant was obliged to conduct them. A payment provider was not obliged to compare the used gaming offers with the whitelist published by the German Federal States in order to verify their legality.
The Court of First Instance dismissed the action of the plaintiff.
(1) Council Regulation (EC) No 44/2001 of 22 December 2000 on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters.