In its decision of 25 June 2008, the 13th Senate of the Higher Administrative Court of North Rhine-Westphalia reached a decision on the prohibition of call advertising.
The applicant - a telecommunications company - provides forwarding services to companies offering value-added services for a fee. Using telephone computers, the company called telephone subscribers and informed them via an automated announcement that they had won a prize. For further information, they had to press a certain key on the telephone set. In this case, a connection to a chargeable value-added service under a 0900 number was established. Numerous consumers complained to the Federal Network Agency because they were affected by unwanted advertising and even the blocking of 0900 numbers was being circumvented. The Federal Network Agency therefore banned the company from making advertising calls and from forwarding calls to 0900 numbers by keystroke by decision of 22 February 2008. The company appealed against this decision to the Federal Network Agency. Its emergency application was rejected by the Cologne Administrative Court in a decision of 18 April 2008. The appeal of the company against this decision was now rejected by the Higher Administrative Court in the above-mentioned decision.
In its reasoning, it essentially stated: The unwanted advertising calls violated the Unfair Competition Act. It was to be assumed that advertising using automatic calling machines constituted unreasonable harassment if the addressees did not give their consent. The forwarding by keystroke violated the Telecommunications Act, as the company had initiated unauthorised collect calls. The company was also the correct addressee for the measures of the Federal Network Agency.
The order of the Higher Administrative Court is unappealable.
Decision of the Higher Administrative Court of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) of 25.6.2008, Ref.: 13 B 668/08
Source: Press release of the Higher Administrative Court of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) of 25.6.2008,
Goldberg Attorneys at Law, Wuppertal-Solingen 2008
Attorney at Law Michael Ullrich, LL.M.(Information Law)
E-Mail: m.ullrich@goldberg.de
