Rechtsprechung

  • Rechtssachenbeschreibung
    • Nationale Kennung: XI ZR 195/05
    • Mitgliedstaat: Deutschland
    • Gebräuchliche Bezeichnung:N/A
    • Art des Beschlusses: Sonstiges
    • Beschlussdatum: 13/10/2006
    • Gericht: BGH
    • Betreff:
    • Kläger:
    • Beklagter:
    • Schlagworte: Rechtsprechung Deutschland Deutsch
  • Artikel der Richtlinie
    Unfair Contract Terms Directive, Article 1, 1. Doorstep Selling Directive, Article 1, 1.
  • Leitsatz
    a) Der wirksamen Abtretung von Darlehensforderungen eines Kreditinstituts stehen weder das Bankgeheimnis noch das Bundesdatenschutzgesetz entgegen.
    b)Arbeitsplatz i.S. des § 1 Abs. 1 Nr. 1 HWiG a.F. (§ 312 Abs. 1 Satz 1 Nr. 1 BGB) ist nur derjenige des Verbrauchers.
    c) Zu den Voraussetzungen des § 5 Abs. 1 HWiG (§ 312f Satz 2 BGB), wenn der Bürge seine Bürgschaftserklärung am Arbeitsplatz des persönlichen Schuldners abgibt.
  • Sachverhalt
    The plaintiff by way of part-action demands – based on a ceded claim of the Raiffeisenbank F. (in the following: assignor) – the repayment of a loan amounting to EUR 76.693,78 together with interest from the 1st and 2nd defendant. The 3rd defendant is sued as a guarantor.

    The 1st defendant on 23 December 1996 took out a loan worth DM 405.000 from the assignor to use it as an interim financing for the purchase of an apartment. To effectuate the disbursement of the loan he and his wife, the 2nd defendant on 8 January 1997 opened a current account with the assignor. In 1998, this current account showed a debit of app. DM 125.000. On 14 October 1998 the 3rd defendant, the 2nd defendant’s father, signed a directly enforceable guarantee agreement limited to DM 150.000 to secure all existing, future and contingent claims of the assignor against the 1st and 2nd defendant. The surety document did not contain an instruction on the right of withdrawal and stated in no. 9 that any modification of or amendment to the guarantee contract or any agreement directed at the abrogation of the surety required written form to be valid. The 3rd defendant claims that he had signed the guarantee agreement during an uncalled visit of an employee of the assignor in the 2nd defendant’s dental practice. On this occasion he had been assured that he would be released from the agreement as soon as the 1st defendant had received an expected tax refund of app. DM 50.000.

    On 22 / 28 October 1998 the 1st and the 2nd defendant concluded a loan agreement worth DM 550.000, which comprised an old loan amounting to DM 424.00 and – to release the overdraft of the current account – an increase of the loan value by DM 126.000. The 1st and the 2nd defendant signed a separate “instruction on the right of withdrawal” which complied with § 7 VerbrKrG [old version]. The loan agreement contained “General terms and conditions for loans” whose no. 11 is titled “refinancing” and has the following content:
    “The bank is entitled to cede the claim for the repayment of the loan in case it should be refinanced. In this case it is also entitled to assign the according securities to the refinancing bank.”
    After the financed object had been put to sale by court order in 2002, the assignor by letter dating from 1 October 2002 terminated the loan agreement concluded in October 1998 and fixed a deadline for the repayment of EUR 287.190,52 until 30 November 2002.

    By agreement of 25 September 2003 the assignor ceded its claims against the 1st and the 2nd defendant and the granted securities (which included the guarantee agreement signed by the 3rd defendant) to the plaintiff.
  • Rechtsfrage
  • Entscheidung

    The 1st and 2nd defendant’s appeal on a point of law is unfounded.

    The plaintiff is entitled to a right of action in its own name. The validity of the assignment of the claims arising from the loan contract and the guarantee agreement are neither excluded by a contractual or a legal prohibition of assignment.

    The assignment by the assignor is not excluded under § 399 2nd case BGB, since there no corresponding – not even a tacit – agreement with the obligor. Rather, in no. 11 of the General Terms and Conditions on Loans the assignor’s right to cede its claims in case of a refinancing is expressly provided. Apart from that, an exclusion of assignment is contrary to the legitimate – and perceptible for the customer - interests of the bank in a free transferability of credit claims to enable refinancing or release of risk capital or owner’s equity.

    A contractual exclusion of assignment can neither be deduced from banking confidentiality, which includes the duty of the bank to retain secrecy with respect to personal data and valuations which have come to its knowledge because or on the occasion of the business relation to the customer and which the customer wishes to keep secret. This duty of secrecy, which is of a purely contractual nature, does not constitute an exclusion of transferability in rem. Although it can conflict with the assignor’s duty of information under § 402 BGB to provide the new obligee with the information required to assert the claim, a breach of the duty of confidentiality could only give rise to a claim for damages on a contractual level (§ 280(1) BGB in conjunction with § 241(2) BGB) but does not effect the validity of the assignment of the claim in rem.

    The assignment does neither constitute an infringement of a legal prohibition under § 134 BGB. A qualification of banking confidentiality as customary law prohibiting an assignment is already barred by the lack of the required established legal practice (consuetudo) considered to be law by the relevant actors (opinio iuris). The relevant rules in the Bundesdatenschutzgesetz (BDSG) do neither constitute a statutory prohibition in the terms of § 134 BGB. From the wording of § 1(3)(2) BDSG it can be deduced that the obligation to protect professional secrets which are not based on statutory provisions are to remain “unaffected” by the provisions of the BDSG. This means that the law of data protection has a backup function with respect to the banking confidentiality (as a professional secret) and thus is not applicable in the context of § 134 BGB. Otherwise the general transferability of money claims intended by the legislator would be undermined on a huge scale.

    The 3rd defendant’s appeal on a point of law is successful.

    § 1(1) HWiG and § 312 BGB grant a separate right of withdrawal for the guarantor even if the principal obligation secured by the surety cannot be revoked under § 1(1) no. 1 HWiG [old version], since a guarantor who enters into a guarantee agreement securing a business loan in a doorstep situation cannot be put in a worse situation than someone who signs the loan contract as a co-debtor. In the case at hand, however, the 3rd defendant was not induced to make his declaration of will leading to the conclusion of the guarantee agreement in a doorstep situation. At the time he spoke to the agent of the assignor and signed the guarantee agreement he was in the premises of the 2nd defendant’s dental practice, which were neither his place of work nor his private residence in the terms of § 1(1) no. 1 HWiG [old version]. To be addressed at the place of work of a third party, which has no connection to that of the consumer is – contrary to the private residence of a third party – unambiguously not covered by § 1(1) no. 1 HWiG and Art. 1(1) of the Directive 85/557 (“his place of work”). As shown by the history of origins of the provision, the “surprise effect” affecting the consumer does not suffice; rather; the consumer must be situated in a “compromised situation” due to being at his place of work, which was not the case here.

    However, the appellate court has - under violation of the provisions of civil procedure (§ 286 ZPO [Code of Civil Procedure]) – ignored statements of the parties which was relevant for the court’s decision. From the mere fact that the 3rd defendant has not expressly repeated his substantiated and thus relevant statement that the signing of the guarantee was only of temporary character and he was to be released from his liability eventually it cannot be deduced that he was no longer maintaining this position. The appellate defendant can to a large extent refer to his statement of case made in the first instance in the statement of case for the appeal and limit his pleading to the defence of the contested judgement. The auxiliary agreement concluded with the assignor’s employee (§ 55 HGB [Handelsgesetzgebuch – Commercial Code]) which – as an individually agreed term - would take priority over the pre-formulated terms (§ 4 AGBG [Standard Terms Act]) and would have become valid in spite of the clause no. 9 requiring written form. This is because an agreement limiting the liability of the guarantor compared to the clauses in the contract document in conjunction with the statutory provisions is valid without any formal requirement.

    Volltext: Volltext

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