Usancen Blog
European Green Deal: Stricter CSR reporting requirements
Only a few years ago, with the so-called Corporate Social Responsibility Directive (CSR Directive), the EU Accounting Directive was supplemented by an obligation for larger companies to include a "non-financial statement" in their management report. ...
OGH: "lack of novelty" and "inventive step" (PatG)
In the Austrian Patent Act (Patentgesetz, PatG), opposition proceedings are characterised by the principle of disposition. In principle, unasserted grounds for opposition are not to be taken into account. However, a ground for opposition need not be ...
BFG: Revocation of legal aid in case of refusal to cooperate
In the present proceedings, the Austrian Federal Fiscal Court (Bundesfinanzgericht) addressed the question of legal aid (Verfahrenshilfe) within the meaning of Sec. 292 Federal Fiscal Code (Bundesabgabenordnung). On 4 November 2019, the account balan...
ECJ: Diversion to a nearby airport is not a cancellation
A passenger shall not be entitled to compensation for cancellation if his flight has been diverted and he lands at an airport which, although not the same as the destination airport provided for in the original booking, serves the same place, city or...
EU Commission proposes legal framework for AI
The European Commission introduced a proposal for a regulation on laying down harmonized rules on artificial intelligence (Artifical Intelligence Act). This proposal represents the European Commission’s first ever legal framework for AI. Below, the c...
OGH: Exclusion of the public does not have to justify nullity
The Austrian Supreme Court (Oberster Gerichtshof, OGH) has ruled that exclusion of the public from oral hearings in civil proceedings is not a ground for nullity to be challenged by the courts if both parties waive their right to appeal against the e...
Drunk on the way home: OGH on the cancellation of insurance coverage
An employee sought the award of a disability pension from the General Accident Insurance Fund (Allgemeine Unfallversicherungsanstalt, AUVA) after suffering an accident on the way home from his place of work. This was to no avail, as according to the ...
BCBS takes COVID-19 into focus
The Corona crisis has also presented the banking sector with great challenges. The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision addresses these challenges in its work programme for 2020-2021 and will make COVID-19 a core part of its focus. In addition, the...
Germany: Federal Constitutional Court declares Berlin rent cap unconstitutional
The Berlin rent cap violates the German Constitution (Grundgesetz). The state of Berlin has no legislative competence to regulate rent levels. At the beginning of 2020, the Berlin State Law on the Reorganization of Legal Regulations to Limit Rents wa...
Draft for new consumer warranty law presented
The Federal Ministry of Justice (Bundesministerium für Justiz) has submitted a draft for a new consumer warranty law for review. In the course of this, the general warranty law will also be adapted. The reform is the implementation of two European di...
BVwG: Green light for construction project "Traisental Schnellstraße" S 34
The decision of 06.04.2021 of the Austrian Supreme Administrative Court (Bundesverwaltungsgericht, BVwG) confirmed that the infrastructure project "S34 Traisental Schnellstraße St. Pölten/Hafing (B1) - Knoten St. Pölten/West (A1) - Wilhelmsburg Nord ...
Salzburg Regional Court: Proportionate refund for purchasers of season tickets at ski resorts that were forced to close due to the Corona pandemic
The plaintiffs purchased "SuperSkiCards" from the defendant in autumn 2019, which entitled them to use several ski resorts from 12.10.2019 to 03.05.2020. After all ski resorts had to close in March 2020 due to the Corona pandemic, the ski season was ...
Antitrust law: Advocate General in favor of "descending" liability for damages of the cartelists' subsidiaries
In a case before the European Court of Justice (ECJ), the theory of economic unity in antitrust law could take on a new dimension: While up to now parent companies have been punished for cartel violations committed by their subsidiaries ("ascending" ...
OLG Vienna on COVID-19-related coverage denials
The Vienna Higher Regional Court (Oberlandesgericht Wien, OLG Wien) confirmed the decision of the court of first instance that exceptional circumstances clauses in legal expenses insurance were unlawful. The background to the dispute was whether the ...
OGH: Non-professionals are obliged to refuse installation work
Civil LawThe Austrian Supreme Court (Oberster Gerichtshof, OGH) ruled that someone who takes on a job for which expertise is required without the appropriate expertise has acted culpably and in tort. In the present case, the defendant installed a new but unsu...
OGH to ECJ: Right to information: categories of recipients under GDPR
The Austrian Supreme Court (OGH) has referred a question to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) for a preliminary ruling regarding Art 15 (1) (c) of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The question is whether the data controller has the ri...
ECJ: Embedding content as communication to the public
The European Court of Justice (ECJ) had to decide on the interpretation of Art 3(1) of Directive 2001/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 May 2001 on the harmonization of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the in...
Home office regulations continue
The recently adopted legal home office regulations could not completely convince the opposition parties SPÖ and NEOS. They criticize the lack of regulations in the areas of data security, data protection and mobile working and have tabled motions for...
BFG: COVID-19 no justification for unpaid parking ticket
The plaintiff was accused of having negligently shortened the Vienna parking meter fee several times, as she had parked a multi-lane motor vehicle in a short-stay parking zone for which a fee had to be paid on several days, but without marking it wit...
OGH: general meeting minutes are no proof of power of representation
In several general meetings held by the plaintiff limited liability company (Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung, GmbH) as general meetings without a chairman, one of the two managing directors with collective representation authority (second manag...
OGH: Statistically derived probability data constitute personal data
Data calculated via statistical probabilities and merely "attributed" to a person are also personal data within the meaning of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Upon the plaintiff's request, the defendant provided him with information ab...
ECJ on the essential facilities doctrine
Competition LawAccording to the case law of the European Court of Justice (ECJ), under certain circumstances a company abuses its dominant position if it denies competing companies access to its infrastructure. In a dispute in the telecommunications sector, the ECJ...
FCA does not like Facebook's takeover of GIPHY
Competition LawThe Austrian Federal Competition Authority (FCA) is currently investigating the takeover of the US GIF and sticker platform GIPHY by the US Facebook group. The merger had not been notified - possibly unjustly, according to the FCA. In May 2020, Faceb...
ECJ on the minimum rest period
The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled that the minimum daily rest period applies to all of a worker's employment contracts with the same employer taken together and not to each contract separately. In the case at hand, experts were employed a...
ECJ: passenger compensation in case of unionized pilots' strike
European LawIn the case at hand, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) made a decision diametrically opposed to the Advocate General's opinion in a relatively rare case. This was triggered by a passenger's claim for compensation under the European Air Passenger Re...
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