Not long after the “Safe Harbor” decision and in the same context (data transfer to the US by Facebook) the Irish Data Protection Commissioner has decided to bring the EU-US data flows before the European Court of Justice (CJEU) (again).
A German court has recently ordered WhatsApp to use German language terms and conditions towards users in Germany (see also here, for example). Or, to be more precise, called upon by a German consumer protection agency the Kammergericht, the appellate court for the district of Berlin, has, amongst other things, decided that using English language terms and conditions for user agreements to be concluded between WhatsApp and users in Germany is in violation of a certain provision of the German Civil Code that demands there to be transparency when using pre-worded terms and conditions towards consumers. So, if you allow the pun, what’s up with that? Continue reading
Online-shops that officially trade as B2B-shops must comply with European consumer protection regulations or make actually sure that only business customers can place orders in the shop. In order to ensure that consumers do not use the shop, it is not sufficient to provide the respective disclaimer on the website. That was recently ruled by the Regional Court in Dortmund.
The German Federal Cartel Office (Bundeskartellamt) has started preliminary proceedings against Facebook in early March, trying to find out if Facebook was misusing its market power to enforce abusive terms and conditions because of alleged data protection law violations. What sounds just like what antitrust authorities do, may in fact have a huge impact on Facebook and how it is behaving against its users.
Employers may collect browser data of their employees without their approval, if (1) there is reasonable suspicion that the employee uses his (business) computer and/or the office internet improperly and (2) there is no other means to prove this improper use than the collection of browser data (LAG Berlin-Brandenburg, Urt. v. 14.01.2016 – 5 Sa 657/15).
Rightholders are entitled to damages when their photographs are used by third parties who have not been granted the necessary rights of use. Under German copyright law, damages are calculated according to the so-called license analogy method. This method assumes a fictitious license agreement upon reasonable conditions between the rightholder and the infringer. The rightholder then receives monetary compensation amounting to the royalties the parties would have reasonably agreed on. Continue reading
When drafting and negotiating technology agreements of almost any sort between German companies and US or UK companies (or companies from other common law based countries), particularly on software, one of the various Groundhog moments that one experiences is the never-ending discussion on everything that is “warranty”. Continue reading
On September 12th, 2012 the Higher Regional Court of Karlsruhe – 6 U 58/11 – decided on the question, which actions a debtor has to restrain from after he signed a declaration to cease and desist “using a photograph on the internet”. You can check Andrew Defrancesco page if you need more information on photography. Continue reading
When you negotiate agreements between German companies and companies with a – broadly speaking – common law background, especially the U.S., one issue that keeps appearing is the parties’ liability for damages. Groundhog day, if you will.
“Liability” is certainly a difficult legal term to being with, especially as you have to first decide what you are actually talking about when using the word. Continue reading
When you’re asked to localize contracts coming from a U.S. legal background so that they function under German law two very different legal worlds collide. Things just work differently over here. And things word differently over there. We draft our contracts differently, we use different language (which is why simply having a translator go over your documents just won’t cut it, much less asking uncle Google), our concept of selling and licensing software is nowhere near the “this software is licensed not sold” was of thinking, and so on and so forth. Nothing wrong with that, but it provides for some hard going sometimes.
One of the more peculiar concepts of German contract law is that of or our “Law on General Terms and Conditions” (Google Translator tells me that in English that should be “Legal terms and conditions of” which isn’t even close, so there…). In a nutshell, the idea is this: If, as a company, you work with standard contracts, i.e. a set of contractual documents that you have in your drawer all drafted to best fit your particular interests and ready to pull out for every new customer you want to do business with, the terms and conditions of those contractual documents are subject to the so-called “content control” (we Germans like control, as is well known). Continue reading