Society of consumerism vs Amazon – OGH decision

David versus Goliath?

In a long-lasting lawsuit between Austria’s Verein für Konsumenteninformation (VKI; society of consumerism) and Amazon EU S.à.r.l. the Supreme Court recently reached a decision.

At the beginning of the court’s deliberation stood the question of the applicable law: Amazon refers in it’s choice of law clause to Luxembourgian law – a valid practice. However, customers have not been informed about their own possibility to refer to the legal regulations of the country of their common residence (Austria), therefore the choice of law clause is legally void.

The VKI sued the internet retailer amongst others for the following invalid clauses in their general terms and conditions: Levying of a fee of €1,50 in the case of purchase on account, the exclusively written possibility to withdraw from a contact and the unlimited use of content provided by the user (e.g. reviews). Further points of accusation are unclearly defined clauses, which included the customer’s implicit consent to forwarding their personal data to credit bureaus. Customers can now reclaim the wrongly paid accounting charge.

Details on the decision are available at theSupreme Court and in the RIS (both in German).