Germany: Bottle deposit must be stated separately
Deposits for bottles and jars must be stated separately from the price of the product in advertising. This was decided on Thursday by the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) in Karlsruhe, ending a dispute between the German Association for Social Competition (Verband Sozialer Wettbewerb) and a Kiel-based department store chain that had lasted for years. This was preceded by a ruling of the European Court of Justice (ECJ), which in June had also declared the separate display of deposit money to be permissible and also deemed it necessary in the interests of transparency.
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At the hearing two weeks ago, the BGH had already left no doubt that it would implement the decision as stipulated by the ECJ. The food retailer had behaved completely correctly, said the presiding judge of the 1st senate on Thursday when giving reasons for the judgment.
The association, on the other hand, had considered it inadmissible that the chain advertised drinks in deposit bottles and yogurt in jars in one of its brochures from the fall of 2018, stating the deposit money separately. In the leaflet, next to the price of the goods, there was always the addition "plus ... ? Deposit". Like the Kieler handle it most food dealers. The association saw this as a violation of competition law.
At a first hearing in 2021, the BGH had asked the ECJ about this. After its decision, the BGH had to hear the case for the second time and now ruled in favor of the retailers. The separate indication of sales price and deposit amount enables consumers to better assess and compare the prices of goods, it said. (Case No. I ZR 135/20)/avg/DP/zb (dpa)
Note: This article has been translated using a computer system without human intervention. LUMITOS offers these automatic translations to present a wider range of current news. Since this article has been translated with automatic translation, it is possible that it contains errors in vocabulary, syntax or grammar. The original article in German can be found here.
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