The 15th civil senate of the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court (OLG Düsseldorf) has ruled that in summary proceedings an Ebay seller who has replied to a negative review by a buyer cannot, as a rule, demand the deletion of the negative review.
In the underlying case, a buyer had purchased a computer monitor in November 2010 for a purchase price of 144.90 euros via the Ebay platform. She then exercised her right of withdrawal and returned the monitor to the seller. The seller refused to refund the purchase price, claiming that the plaintiff had not packed the returned monitor properly, so that the monitor had been damaged.
The buyer then posted the following comment on the Ebay rating portal on 21 December 2010: "Hands off! Got his goods back, but I never got my money back". The seller then posted the following reply: "Negligence damaged LCD please read everything on our me page beginning" and demanded that the buyer delete the negative buyer review. She claimed, among other things, that she had lost sales because of the negative review.
The Regional Court of Düsseldorf (LG Düsseldorf) denied a claim for cancellation on 20 January 2011. The 15th Civil Senate of the Higher Regional Court confirmed this decision in interim injunction proceedings on 28 February 2011. In the event of a conflict, the Ebay rating system enables the parties to immediately describe their point of view. At least in summary proceedings, in interim injunction proceedings, deletion could therefore not be demanded as a rule. Moreover, the statement "received his goods, but I never received my money" was not obviously untrue in essence. The term "Finger weg" (hands off) also did not cross the line into defamatory criticism.
The decision is final.
Order of the 15th Civil Senate of the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court of 28 February 2011, file number I-15 W 14/11
Source: Press release of the OLG Düsseldorf
Goldberg Attorneys at Law 2011
Attorney at Law Michael Ullrich, LL.M. (Information Law)
Specialist lawyer for information technology law (IT law)
E-mail: info@goldberg.de
