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On 15 February 2001, the German Bundestag (Lower House of Parliament) adopted the new Signaturgesetz (Electronic Signature Act - SigG), which was approved by the Bundesrat (Upper House of Parliament) on 9 March. Under the terms of the Act, which is designed to transpose into German law the provisions of Directive 1999/93/EC of 13 December 1999 on a Community framework for electronic signatures (see IRIS 2000-1: 5), the current 1997 Electronic Signature Act will be abolished. A key feature of the new Act is the creation of a new security infrastructure for qualified electronic signatures, which...

On 20 February 2001, the Niedersächsische Landesmedienanstalt für privaten Rundfunk (Lower Saxony Commercial Broadcasting Authority - NLM) instituted proceedings against TV production company Endemol and imposed a fine of DEM 100,000. The case was brought because, in the NLM's view, there had been a breach of the ban on surreptitious advertising contained in Section 7.6.1 of the Rundfunkstaatsvertrag (Agreement between Federal States on Broadcasting - RStV) in connection with the Land media authorities' common guidelines on advertising, the separation of advertising and programme material and...

In a judgment of 4 October 2000, the Verwaltungsgericht Hamburg (Hamburg Administrative Court) dismissed a complaint by Premiere Medien GmbH & Co. KG (appellant). The appellant had challenged a decision by the defendant, the Hamburgische Anstalt für neue Medien (Hamburg New Media Authority - HAM), in which it had found the appellant to have breached the ban on pornography by broadcasting five films. The appellant claimed in the proceedings that the HAM's decision had been unlawful, in particular on the grounds that it had based its assessment of the films concerned on a false definition of pornography....

On 14 February 2001, the Federal Government adopted the Bill on a legal framework for electronic commerce. As a result, the transposition of Directive 2000/31/EC ("E-Commerce Directive") of 8 June 2000 (see IRIS 2000-5: 3) will be brought before Parliament. The Bill mainly concerns amendments to the Teledienstegesetz (Teleservices Act) and obliges the Bundesländer to adapt their Mediendienstestaatsvertrag (Inter-State Agreement on Media Services), since the "information society services" covered by the Directive, as teleservices, fall within the scope of both these instruments. The Bill makes...

The Kirch group which, together with the Swiss marketing company ISL, owns the broadcasting rights for the 2002 and 2006 football World Cups, has lodged a complaint against the European Commission. The European Court of Justice must therefore rule on the Commission's decision to approve the provisions of the United Kingdom's Broadcasting Act 1996, as amended by the Television Broadcasting Regulations 2000, and the ITC Code on Sports and Other Listed Events, which were designed to transpose Article 3a of the "Television without Frontiers" Directive (see IRIS 2000-3: 8). The Commission's approval...