Telephone advertising without a valid callback number is unfair

The Munich Higher Regional Court ruled at the end of last month that, in the context of telephone advertising, the provision of a callback number that ultimately does not allow a company partner to be reached is anti-competitive. This follows from § 5 a para. 2, para. 4 UWG in conjunction with. § 312 d para. 1 BGB, Art. 246 a § 1 para. 1 No. 2 EGBGB.

According to § 5 a para. 2 UWG, withholding essential information in the context of concluding a contract with a consumer constitutes a misleading commercial act within the meaning of Section 5 (2) UWG. 1 UWG, provided that the consumer needs the information in question according to the respective circumstances in order to be able to make an informed decision, and the withholding is likely to cause him to take a commercial action that he would not have taken otherwise. Pursuant to Section 5 a (a), the following shall be deemed to be material within the meaning of the said provision. 4 UWG also includes information that may not be withheld from the consumer on the basis of EU regulations or regulations implementing EU directives for commercial communication (including advertising and marketing). Essential information in this sense also includes the telephone number of the trader (who is advertising to the consumer by means of distance selling). Insofar as in the literature the discrepancy between the Directive (“if applicable, his telephone number, fax number and e-mail address”) and Art. 246 a EGBGB (“telephone number, and, if applicable, his fax number and his e-mail address”) with regard to the full harmonization of the Directive (which does not permit stricter national law) is regarded as a transposition error which is to be corrected in conformity with the Directive to the effect that the entrepreneur is not obliged to provide information about any of the means of communication listed, This was not relevant for the decision in the present case, since the defendant had not submitted that it had offered other possibilities of quick contact for efficient communication with it or its representative instead of the requested telephone number.

In connection with the current Amazon ruling of the ECJ, there is currently a lot of movement in the question of what information really has to be offered in the remote set.

The full ruling can be found here.

Author: Marian Härtel

Marian Härtel ist Rechtsanwalt und Fachanwalt für IT-Recht mit einer über 25-jährigen Erfahrung als Unternehmer und Berater in den Bereichen Games, E-Sport, Blockchain, SaaS und Künstliche Intelligenz. Seine Beratungsschwerpunkte umfassen neben dem IT-Recht insbesondere das Urheberrecht, Medienrecht sowie Wettbewerbsrecht. Er betreut schwerpunktmäßig Start-ups, Agenturen und Influencer, die er in strategischen Fragen, komplexen Vertragsangelegenheiten sowie bei Investitionsprojekten begleitet. Dabei zeichnet sich seine Beratung durch einen interdisziplinären Ansatz aus, der juristische Expertise und langjährige unternehmerische Erfahrung miteinander verbindet. Ziel seiner Tätigkeit ist stets, Mandanten praxisorientierte Lösungen anzubieten und rechtlich fundierte Unterstützung bei der Umsetzung innovativer Geschäftsmodelle zu gewährleisten.