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The advertising landscape for German private TV broadcasters has, for many years, included advertisements for gambling services that are illegal under the Glücksspielstaatsvertrag (Inter-State Gambling Agreement - GlüStV) of the German Länder. It has long been disputed whether these advertising campaigns can be based on the online gambling licences that were awarded in Schleswig-Holstein at a time when the Land followed its own path by relaxing the rules on gambling. The online gambling licences awarded in Schleswig-Holstein expired at the start of February 2019. As a result, television, radio...

In a recently published judgment of 17 January 2019 (Case no. 12 O 1982/2018), the Landgericht München (Munich district court) decided that customers were unreasonably disadvantaged by a unilateral, groundless change to programme packages sold by pay-TV provider Sky Deutschland. In its terms of business, the pay-TV provider had reserved the right to change or limit programme packages and services as long as their ‘overall character’ was not affected. The terms of business also stated that the programme content of sports channels was seasonal and could vary depending on the availability of broadcasting...

In a recently published decision of 18 December 2018 (Case no. 5 B 229/18), the Sächsische Oberverwaltungsgericht Bautzen (Saxony Higher Administrative Court Bautzen - OVG) ruled that, if a competitor’s complaint about the allocation of broadcast transmission capacity appears unlikely to succeed, the public interest in the provisional allocation of transmission capacity takes precedence over the competitor’s interest in suspending the implementation of the allocation decision. Although the decision concerns radio transmission capacity, it contains important general principles for the allocation...

On 27 March 2019, following applications from two people who are required to pay the German broadcasting contribution (cases BVerwG 6 C 5.18 and 6 C 6.18), the Bundesverwaltungsgericht (Federal Administrative Court - BVerwG) decided that the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) should rule on whether the broadcasting contribution can and should be payable in cash. The decision primarily concerns the interpretation of the concept of legal tender and the scope of the European Union’s exclusive jurisdiction over monetary policy. In Germany, the obligation for private individuals to pay the...

The Gesetz zur Verbesserung der Rechtsdurchsetzung in sozialen Netzwerken (Act to improve law enforcement in social networks - NetzDG), which is designed to force social networks to deal more quickly and more comprehensively with complaints about hate crime and other criminal content, entered into force in Germany on 1 October 2017 (see IRIS 2018-1/15). Under the Act, social networks must ensure, through an effective and transparent procedure, that complaints are immediately noted and checked, and that illicit content is deleted within specified deadlines. Social network providers that receive...