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On 23 December 2009, the Oberlandesgericht München (Munich Appeal Court - OLG) upheld the company Danone's claim to information about the kick-back payments received by the media agency Aegis Media during the period of a contract between the two companies (case no. 7 U 3044/09). The plaintiff had been using Aegis Media as its media agency for many years. As such, Aegis Media essentially managed the company's TV advertising budget and bought advertising slots from broadcasters. Under the contract between the two parties, all economic benefits that were neither part of the advertising fee nor the...

On 28 January 2010, the Bundesverwaltungsgericht (Federal Administrative Court - BVerwG) decided that Deutsche Telekom AG is not obliged to provide its competitors with access to its optical fibres between cable distributors and main distribution frames (MDFs). In the proceedings, Deutsche Telekom had appealed against a regulatory order issued by the Bundesnetzagentur (Federal Network Agency - BNetzA) on 27 June 2007. The order obliged the former monopolist to grant its competitors access not only (as before) to the 8,000 or so MDFs, but also to the cable ducts between the MDFs and the 300,000...

In December 2009, the Arbeitsgemeinschaft der öffentlich-rechtlichen Rundfunkanstalten Deutschlands (association of German public service broadcasters - ARD) and the Allianz Deutscher Produzenten Film & Fernsehen e. V. (alliance of German film and television producers) agreed a set of guidelines for cooperation in relation to commissioned television productions. One of the provisions of the agreement is that, as well as the standard model whereby commissioned productions are fully financed by the broadcaster, the model of co-financing by producers should be strengthened. Under the co-financing...

On 3 December 2009, the Landtag (State parliament) of North Rhine-Westphalia adopted the new Landesmediengesetz (State Media Act - LMG) and an amendment to the WDR-Gesetz (WDR Act). As well as bringing these instruments into line with the provisions of the amended Rundfunkstaatsvertrag (Inter-State Broadcasting Agreement), the main changes are designed to amend media concentration rules, tighten youth protection in the media and facilitate radio digitisation. Firstly, the amendment of Art. 33 para. 3 LMG allows newspaper publishers to own up to a 100% share in a broadcasting company. In order to...

In December 2009, two court rulings were issued in relation to whether programme providers can charge a licence fee for the use of their programme information in electronic programme guides (EPGs). According to reports, the Oberlandesgericht Dresden (Dresden Appeal Court - OLG) ruled that this was the case on 15 December 2009 in an appeal procedure between the collecting society Verwertungsgesellschaft Media (VG Media) and the online programme magazine tvtv.de. It therefore upheld a first instance decision taken by the Landgericht Leipzig (Leipzig District Court - LG) in May 2009. The LG had decided...