Check24 can follow tariff notes | EUROtoday

Anyone on the lookout for services or products on the Internet is pleased to orient themselves in the direction of the experiences of different shoppers. Or you flip on to a comparability portal that provides an outline of presents and tariffs- and even evaluates it in line with a star system or college and tariff notes. On the one hand, what ensures transparency and comparability is angered by many firms on the opposite.

On Thursday, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in Luxembourg in a authorized dispute from Germany denied a violation of competitors if the web comparability service itself just isn’t a “competitor” of the graded firm. According to the choice, there is no such thing as a case of inadmissible comparative promoting. This also needs to apply to instances through which the portal solely conveys contracts-the ECJ strengthens the authorized place of comparability portals reminiscent of Check24, Verivox and different suppliers (proper matter C-697/23).

In the beginning case, the insurance coverage group HUK-Coburg and several other firms within the comparability portal Check24 from Munich have argued. In a tariff comparability, the comparability portal represents varied insurance coverage sectors of car insurance policies, home items, accident as much as the Riester pension. After getting into sure key knowledge to your particular person, the customers of Check24 can evaluate tariffs, however are additionally displayed after setting sure preferences.

In addition, the portal in a separate, blue -surrounded subject beneath the respective identify of the supplier exhibits a tariff grade with a numerical worth of 1.0 to 4.0. These are underlaid by Check24 with the respective college grades of “very good”, “good”, “satisfactory” and “sufficient”. The person can then conclude a contract with the respective insurer through a management panel.

Huk-Coburg sees behavioral habits in using tariff grades. The insurer sued the guardian firm of Check24 and 5 different firms for insurance coverage sectors in November 2020 earlier than the Cologne Regional Court, later in Munich for injunction and compensation. The plaintiff argues that the presentation and allocation of CHECK24 tariff notes is an inadmissible comparative promoting.

The insurers’ legal professionals emphasised that tariff grades are pure worth judgments and due to this fact not a permissible topic of comparative promoting. The properties of a product and its value couldn’t be reproduced. Huk-Coburg considers the comparability based mostly on tariff notes “generally inadmissible”. The presentation can also be not, as from Check24 claims, arithmetical abstract of property comparisons. Such can’t be summed up in several insurance coverage contracts, emphasised the plaintiff, who additionally identified the excessive deception potential for shoppers.

In addition, the legal professionals of HUK-Coburg referred to the case regulation of the Federal Court of Justice for product evaluations by the Stiftung Warentest from 1997. This requires {that a} grade of grades could be based mostly on a “neutral, objective and expert examination”. However, this neutrality is lacking from Check24, the insurance coverage group claimed.

The operators of the portal follow their strategy. A comparability by way of tariff grade is “fundamentally and in the specific case”. The arithmetical abstract relies on the important and typical properties of insurance coverage that a mean policyholder anticipated. According to the complaints, the criticism doesn’t matter to guard a neutrality that the regulation calls in opposition to the unfair competitors (UWG).

The accountable civil chamber in Munich needed to know whether or not comparisons are permitted on the Internet in the event that they happen within the type of grades or factors. She suspended the authorized dispute in autumn 2023 and offered the case to the ECJ.

On request, neither Check24 nor the HUK-Coburg needed to touch upon the choice of the ECJ on Thursday. A spokeswoman for the insurer referred to the nonetheless ongoing proceedings earlier than the Munich II District Court. This should now resume and determine the uncovered authorized dispute (Az. 1 HK O 5720/21).