When is an email “received” in a business environment?

The legal term “access” is relevant to numerous legal issues. When exactly this is the case, however, can be disputed in individual cases, because well-known interpretations such as “when a letter has entered the sphere of power” are only of limited use for digital communication.

Now the Federal Court of Justice has commented on this.

In this respect, the decision is very reminiscent of the good old “mailbox”.

If an e-mail is made available for retrieval on the recipient’s mail server during normal business hours, it is generally deemed to have been received by the recipient at that time.
The fact that the e-mail is actually retrieved and taken note of is not required for access.

The whole decision can be found here.