No impressum obligation for foris.de

Where a law firm's online presence lacks independence and contains only neutral standard information about professional activities within an online directory, there is no impressum obligation. This was the decision of the Regional Court (LG) Stuttgart in a recent legal dispute between two lawyers.

The warning-letter-sending lawyer from Kornwestheim had recently made it his business to warn off colleagues for missing provider identification – including via internet platforms such as Xing. According to his own statements to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, he had "deliberately warned off a small number of colleagues who describe themselves as specialists in this area of law".

Some of the lawyers who received warnings have not accepted the allegation of unfair competition. Thus, the Regional Court (LG) Stuttgart had to decide on the legitimacy of some of the warnings. In this specific case, the law firm's online presence of a lawyer on the internet pages of the providers McAdvo and foris.de were at issue, whereby the provider identification was missing. The lawyer who received the warning stated that he had not violated his impressum obligation, as his appearance did not go beyond a simple "web business card" and he had only limited influence on the design of his presence. Finally, he took action against the allegations by way of a declaratory judgment action.

Court's decision

After the warning-letter-sending lawyer acknowledged the claim with regard to the internet presence on McAdvo, the Regional Court (LG) Stuttgart had to address in its judgment of 07.08.2014 (Az. 11 O 84/14) only the impressum obligation within the scope of the presence on the internet platform foris.de.

The court granted the declaratory judgment action. The warning-letter-sending lawyer had no right to an injunction with regard to the presence within the internet platform foris.de, as the lawyer who received the warning was not a service provider within the meaning of the Telemediengesetz. The internet publication in dispute within the scope of the "FORIS-AnwaltsVerzeichnis" was solely a telemedium of FORIS AG, which it as platform operator made available for use and was thus the service provider.

Although the court did not fundamentally exclude that users of comparable portals could in individual cases also be service providers, the decisive factor was whether the provider itself could determine the content and provision of the service and whether his offering presented itself to an objective third party as an independent presence. The requirement of technical communication independence was not satisfied if the individual offering was recognizably distinguishable from the rest of the website for the user. In the case in dispute, the "FORISAnwaltsVerzeichnis" presented itself to an external third party as an information directory of FORIS AG for those interested in finding a lawyer. The information about legal practice consisted of completely neutral standard information about legal practice, which was listed in a simple data list in the manner of a neutral directory entry. Although the profile contained the law firm logo and a photograph, in an overall assessment no personal, individually formulated statement or representation was connected with this presence.

As a result, the court in this case – in contrast to the previous proceedings (11 O 51/14 and 11 O 101/14) – denied the required technical communication independence.

Conclusion

The principles established in this judgment can equally be applied to other industries. Insofar as the presence of an information portal user does not have independence and presents itself to an external third party as a dependent part of an information service, the user has no impressum obligation. Corresponding competition law warningsare not justified in this respect.