Case law

  • Case Details
    • National ID: XI ZR 154/04
    • Member State: Germany
    • Common Name:link
    • Decision type: Other
    • Decision date: 08/03/2005
    • Court: BGH (Supreme court)
    • Subject:
    • Plaintiff:
    • Defendant:
    • Keywords:
  • Directive Articles
    Unfair Contract Terms Directive, Article 1, 1. Unfair Contract Terms Directive, Article 2 Unfair Contract Terms Directive, Article 3, 1. Unfair Contract Terms Directive, ANNEX I, 1.
  • Headnote
    1. An internal instruction issued by a bank to its branches does not constitute a contract term for the bank customer and thus cannot be a standard term or condition as per § 305 para 1 BGB.
    2. There is an attempt to circumvent the law as per § 306a BGB if internal instructions at the bank are designed to avert scrutiny of contract terms under § 307 BGB and the outcome is tantamount to introducing a fixed compensation charge as an STC in line with § 309 no. 5 BGB.
  • Facts
    The plaintiff was a consumer group. In a circular dated 4/5/1998, the defendant, a bank, informed its branches that, following the BGH’s ruling of 21/10/1997, it was not permissible to charge, as part of standard terms and conditions, a processing fee when cheques or bank transfer requests were returned because there were insufficient funds in the account. Therefore, in such instances, the branches were henceforth to charge 15 DM as compensation for costs incurred and to give as a reason for this the fact that the customer had failed to meet his contractual obligation to ensure there were adequate funds in the account. Since these were compensation charges to cover costs and not a price for a service in the contract, the costs would not appear on the price list. Where customers disputed the charge made against their account, it was necessary to ascertain on a case-by-case basis whether the customers were responsible for the return of the cheque or bank transfer request. In any event, it was important to try to reach an agreement with the customer and avert any legal dispute.
    The defendant subsequently proceeded to act essentially in accordance with the circular and deducted the flat-rate charge from several customers’ bank accounts, which appeared as a debit on their bank statements. The plaintiff brought a case for an injunction against this practice. It argued that by following this procedure in a uniform way across Germany, the defendant was effectively using a standard term. And, since this contravened the regulations on consumer protection in the case of STCs, the term was invalid. In any case, there was a clear attempt to circumvent the law and an infringement of competition law. The regional court of Cologne upheld the claim, though the regional appeal court of Cologne overturned this ruling. The subsequent appeal was successful.
  • Legal issue
    The BGH explained that, by introducing this uniform procedure following the circular, the defendant had not introduced a standard term as per § 305 para 1 BGB. This was because the statement, read objectively, did not give recipients the impression that this procedure was designed to determine the content of a legal contractual relationship. This was not contradicted by no. 1 lit i of the annex to art 3 para 3 of Directive 93/13/EEC, since the Directive also stipulated that a contract term was a prerequisite. Neither the internal instruction of 4/5/1998 nor the debits from customers’ bank statements nor the correspondence to customers who had complained could be deemed STCs. The internal instruction issued by the defendant to its staff was not intended for account holders, nor were they aware of it. The debit from the account, registered on bank statements, was an actual occurrence that merely confirmed an existing relationship. As such, it was not an STC.
    However, in the BGH’s view, there was an infringement of § 306a BGB, which prohibits any attempt to circumvent the law. The wording of § 306a BGB makes it quite clear that this interdiction does not only apply to §§ 308ff. BGB, but to all provisions in the second chapter of the second book of the Civil Code. As such, it also applies to scrutiny as laid down in § 305 BGB. The circular of 4/5/1998 quite clearly constituted an intention to circumvent the law. The BGH went on to argue that the result of deducting a fixed compensation charge was the same for the defendant as it would have been had it actually set a fixed compensation charge as an STC in line with § 309 no. 5 BGB. As such, there was a clear attempt to circumvent the law as per § 306a BGB. Neither the internal instruction itself nor the practice instituted as a result of it bore up to scrutiny under §§ 307-309 BGB. The defendant’s conduct was incompatible with fundamental principles of the law (§ 307 para 2 no. 1 BGB) and caused unfair detriment (§ 307 para 1 BGB) for the bank customers affected. The presiding judges made clear in their verdicts of 21/10/1997 that any terms governing fees that were deemed invalid because they contravened § 305 BGB would equally be invalid as flat-rate compensation charges because this would deny account holders the option under § 309 no. 5 lit. b BGB to prove that there was no compensation to pay or that the level of compensation should be lower. However, in this judgement, the court left open the question of whether a bank customer is obliged, under the terms of a current account contract, to ensure there are sufficient funds in the account. Having assessed the views expressed in literature on this question, the BHG stressed that, under the terms of a current account contract, there was essentially no obligation for the bank customer to ensure there were sufficient funds in the account to ensure that bank transfer requests were not returned in the case of direct debit procedures. The appeal was therefore successful and the original ruling of the regional court reinstated.
  • Decision

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