Case law

  • Case Details
    • National ID: XI ZR 169/05
    • Member State: Germany
    • Common Name:link
    • Decision type: Other
    • Decision date: 10/01/2006
    • Court: BGH (Supreme court)
    • Subject:
    • Plaintiff:
    • Defendant:
    • Keywords:
  • Directive Articles
    Doorstep Selling Directive, Article 1, 1.
  • Headnote
    1. A pledger’s right of withdrawal under § 312(1)(1) BGB is not dependent on the personal debtor being a consumer or him having acted in a doorstep situation (deviation from Federal Court of Justice, judgement of 14 May 1998 – IX ZR 56/95 = BGHZ 139, 21)
    2. On the prerequisites of § 312f sent. 2 BGB, if the personal debtor asks his wife to come to his business premises from their shared private residence in order to sign a pledge agreement.
  • Facts
    The plaintiff’s husband and her son run a handicraft business in the legal form of a “Gesellschaft bürgerlichen Rechts” [transl.: partnership]. Its business premises are located in a house which is situated in front of the plaintiff’s and her husband’s residential house. The two buildings have different house numbers and are situated on separate parcels of land which, however, created the impression of being one piece of land and share gate to the street. An employee of the defendant bank in December 2002 called upon the plaintiff’s husband and her son in their business premises. The husband used the phone to ask the plaintiff to come into the office, where she signed an agreement on the pledging of certain bonds in order to secure a business loan of the partnership. After the partnership had become insolvent, the defendant terminated business relations with the partnership and announced that the securities would be liquidated.
    The plaintiff has claimed the restitution of the securities. She has revoked the pledging, claiming that it had been a doorstep transaction. In addition, she has asserted that the defendant had not informed her about the desolate financial situation of the partnership and had played down the financial risks arising from the pledging. The Regional Court has upheld the claim. The appellate court has dismissed it and inter alia held that a right of withdrawal arising from a doorstep transaction was excluded, if the pledging was made to secure a business loan. In its decision, the appellate court has adhered to a judgement of the 11th senate (civil branch) of the Federal Court of Justice (BGHZ 139, 21). It had – based on a decision of the ECJ (WM 1998, 649) - denied a right of withdrawal with respect to a surety which had been given to secure a business loan.
  • Legal issue
    The 11th senate of the Federal Court of Justice (civil branch) has overruled the appellate court’s judgement and referred the case back. Although the plaintiff could not invoke a right of withdrawal under § 312(1)(1) no. 1 BGB arising from a doorstep situation, it was not excluded because the lien was securing a business loan. The consumer’s risk to be caught in surprise in a doorstep situation was independent from the questions whether the principal obligation was a consumer credit and whether the primary debtor had been induced to enter into the contract in a doorstep situation. The applicability of the provisions on the right of withdrawal was not precluded by the fact that the ECJ was of the opinion that a surety was not covered by the scope of application of the Doorstep Transaction Directive (577/85/EEC), if it was intended to secure a liability entered in the course of the primary debtor’s professional activity. It was to be assumed that the legislator had made use of the option to enact (or maintain) provisions granting a higher level of consumer protection. Otherwise a guarantor who stood surety for a business loan would be put in a worse position than someone who entered into the same obligation as a primary obligor.

    However, the withdrawal was excluded because the plaintiff had not been induced to enter into the contract by verbal negotiations during a doorstep situation. Neither was the location the plaintiff’s workplace, nor did the business premises belong to the plaintiff’s and her husband’s private residence. The defendant’s behaviour did neither constitute a circumvention in the terms of § 312f sent. 2. The typical surprise effect had not arisen from the situation because the plaintiff could have foreseen that business matters would be discussed. However, a claim for the unwinding of the pledging based on the breach of a precontractual information duty had to be considered. Thus, the appellate court had to decide on this point anew.

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  • Decision

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