As of: February 20, 2024, 5:53 p.m
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The entrepreneur Christina Block speaks at a press conference.
© Daniel Reinhardt/dpa
The Block House founder's daughter has been arguing with her ex-husband over their children for years.
The German judiciary has now declared that it is no longer responsible for the custody dispute.
Hamburg - Following a decision by the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court (OLG), German courts no longer have jurisdiction in the custody dispute between Hamburg entrepreneur Christina Block and her ex-husband.
According to a decision announced on Monday on Tuesday, the German courts lack international jurisdiction to make decisions on custody due to the two children's now established center of life in Denmark.
(12UF 139/23)
The Higher Regional Court confirmed the corresponding first instance decision of the family court, against which the mother had lodged a complaint.
By order of October 17, 2023, the family court rejected both parents' applications for custody as inadmissible.
The case recently caused a stir because the children were brought from Denmark to Germany on New Year's Eve by previously unknown persons.
They were with their mother in Hamburg for a few days and were then brought back to their father in Denmark after a court decision.
Christina Block and the father of her children married in August 2005 and divorced about ten years later.
The father did not send the children back to Germany in the summer of 2021 after an agreed visit.
According to the court, the basis for regulating parental custody is the Hague Child Protection Convention of 1996. According to this, the authorities of the country in which the children have their habitual residence are responsible for custody decisions that go beyond emergency orders.
He was in Germany when the children were not returned from a weekend visit to Denmark in August 2021, contrary to what had been agreed.
The children's whereabouts are now Denmark.
The court stated that it is not important that the change in custody in 2021 was unlawful.
What is crucial is that all legal steps in Denmark to repatriate the children were unsuccessful and that the children had settled into their new environment in two and a half years.
According to the Higher Regional Court, there is no longer any appeal against the decision.
Issues of custody are now expected to be resolved by a Danish court.
dpa