Advertising with domain parkplatz-polizei.de contrary to competition law?

Does advertising on the website of a tow truck company using images of tow trucks that do not belong to the company depicted but rather to a competitor, as well as the use of the domain www.parkplatz-polizei.de, constitute misleading advertising? The Regional Court (LG) Augsburg had to decide this legal question.

A tow truck company advertised on its website using images of a competitor's tow trucks, which showed them during towing operations.

Furthermore, the entrepreneur advertised the domain "parkplatz-polizei.de" on his website, which was linked to his website. On this homepage, he informed visitors that his company was a member of the Bundesverband der Polizei-Basis-Gewerkschaften e.V. and illustrated this statement with a corresponding membership card on which a police star was depicted.

A competing tow truck company then issued a cease and desist letter to the competitor for misleading advertising.

Decision of the Court

By judgment of the Regional Court (LG) Augsburg of 08.09.2009 (Az. 2HK O 1630/09), the tow truck operator was ordered to discontinue the advertising.

The Regional Court (LG) established that the entrepreneur had misled consumers regarding essential characteristics of his services, in particular their scope, by depicting towing operations that were not carried out by his company but by a competitor. In this regard, it was irrelevant that the tow truck operator could have provided the depicted services by hiring tow trucks. The decisive factor was that the defendant represented that he had provided services that were in fact provided by a competitor.

By using the term police, the presentation of a membership card and the police star, the entrepreneur also advertised misleadingly for his services. In doing so, he misrepresented properties and an authority of his company that did not exist.

Conclusion

Advertising using properties of a company is contrary to competition law if these properties do not exist in the advertised company. Likewise, one must not present services of a competitor pictorially on one's website as one's own services, thereby feathering one's nest with borrowed plumes.