Legal Literature

Unfair Commercial Practices Directive, Chapter 1, Article 2, (d)

This article discusses whether or not a decision of the German Supreme Court from the year 2007 having the common name "Änderung der Voreinstellung" has become obsolete, now that the new version of the UWG (the German Unfair Competition Act) defines relevant actions that fall under the competition law no longer with "act of competition" but with the broader term "commercial practices" (in order to align it with the UCP Directive).

In said 2007 decision, the Supreme Court held that inadvertent contract infringements in bulk business do not constitute an act of competition, and therefore do not fall under the unfair competition law. 

The author concludes that the pure inadvertent behaviour in single cases does not constitute a "commercial practice" according to the new § 2 I Nr. 1 UWG.