The problem sounds simple: do grocers have to indicate their prices in their advertising including the deposit - or can they show it separately as well?
Legally, the solution is a tough nut to crack.
Karlsruhe (dpa) - A deposit is usually due on drinks bottles - but is that included in the price of the advertising brochure or is it extra?
So far, many dealers have shown the deposit separately.
The highest civil judge of the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) in Karlsruhe, however, doubt that this is correct, as it turned out in a hearing on Thursday.
The Association of Social Competition wants the question to be clarified in principle and has sued a chain of department stores based in Kiel.
There, too, the pure prices for drinks and yoghurt by the glass were printed in a brochure from autumn 2018, with the addition “plus
... € deposit ”.
The association considers this to be inadmissible.
In fact, the BGH ruled in the 1990s that the deposit must be included in the price.
That is a requirement of price clarity.
Politicians wrote something else in the Price Indication Ordinance.
To this day it says that "a refundable security" must be specified separately, not in the total amount.
And the matter is getting even more complicated: Because this regulation has now been superseded by European law - the German regulation was not adapted accordingly.
The BGH judges must now resolve this conflict.
"What should the poor grocer do?" Said the BGH lawyer for the Kiel company, Christian Rohnke.
“That is a very clear regulation.” Customers would have long since got used to the fact that the deposit was extra.
That also serves the purpose of price clarity.
The representative of the association, Peter Wassermann, held against it: “Just because everyone or most of them get it wrong, I can't say I have to accept it.” In addition, many consumers never bring the returnable bottles back, so they don't get a refund.
The presiding judge Thomas Koch said the case was only supposedly simple, but legally complicated.
The verdict is only to be announced in the near future, a date was not initially set.
Because it is about Union law, it is also conceivable that the Senate will involve the European Court of Justice (ECJ).
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210617-99-35106 / 4
