Federal government: "No need" to prohibit GDPR warnings
The Federal Council wants to ban the prosecution of data protection violations by competitors. The government takes it seriously but believes it's too soon.
Building of the Bundesrat in Berlin.
(Image: Bundesrat)
At this time, the German government will not take up the legislative initiative of the Federal Council, with which it wants to put a stop to warnings under competition law based on potential violations of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). In its recently published statement on the project, the executive writes that it takes the aim of the Chamber of States' draft to protect companies from abusive warnings "very seriously". However, it currently sees "no need" for the proposed amendment to the law.
In its proposal from mid-May, the Federal Council called for companies to no longer be able to take action against competitors under the Unfair Competition Act (UWG) because they may have violated data protection regulations such as the GDPR. The German government is now countering this: On the one hand, the danger of purely commercially motivated warnings from competitors in the event of breaches of data protection law has already been countered by a "fundamental reform of the warning system" through the 2020 "Act to Strengthen Fair Competition". Violations of statutory labeling and information obligations on the internet can still be warned. However, competitors are no longer entitled to reimbursement of costs. This also applies to data protection violations by companies with fewer than 250 employees.
The ball is now in the Bundestag's court
The government writes that "an appropriate compromise has been found" that "effectively limits the financial incentive to issue warnings for data protection violations". Secondly, the legal issue addressed in the law is currently the subject of a preliminary ruling request from the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) to the European Court of Justice (ECJ). The corresponding ruling, which is expected in a few months, should be awaited first.
The federal states, on the other hand, seem to be in a hurry. According to them, there is currently still a risk that the prevailing legal uncertainty will be exploited to issue abusive warnings to competitors "to promote their own business interests or to conduct legal proceedings". In practice, the particular potential for abuse in data protection law was recently clearly demonstrated by the wave of warnings in connection with the integration of Google Fonts on websites . The final decision on the states' draft bill will now be made by the Bundestag. The government submitted the bill to parliament together with its comments on Wednesday.
(nie)
