According to recital 7 of the UCP Directive, the Directive addresses commercial practices directly related to influencing customers' transactional decisions in relation to products. Therefore, the statements on the defendant's website constitute a commercial practice in accordance with the UCP Directive, as the statements are directly related to the customers' decision whether to change their health insurance company.
The court found that the information on the defendant's website qualifies as a commercial practice, pursuant to article 2.d of the UCP Directive (and therefore similar to commercial practices in the sense of § 2 Nr. 1 of the UWG (the German Unfair Competition Act)).
The court furthermore considered the defendant to be a trader in the sense of article 2.b of the UCP Directive with respect to the disputed activity. Even though the defendant is part of the federal administration as a corporate body under public law and grants publicly regulated health care, the information on its website was not for social purposes, but instead for economic / business purposes (as it wanted to prevent its paying members from changing to another fund).
The court also found that the information on the defendant's website constituted a misleading commercial practice according to § 5 I Nr. 7 UWG, as it misleads the consumers about their right to terminate a contract with a compulsory insurance health fund for a period of one month after they raised their contributions.