Things you need to understand to make your business safe from the legal side
Although some basic laws are the same for all European Countries, each country in Europe has very specific laws that enterprises should not break in order to avoid legal conflicts. These conflicts could arise by a break of customer law, company law, tax law or other laws. We always see and find especially conflicts in terms of customer law when we check the online offers of our clients. Most foreign companies are not aware which things are a must have for serious business in Germany. It is not enough just to copy and past the forms that the German Government does provide for instance for the right of withdrawl. The form must get filled very precise to avoid a right of withdrawal of 12 months.
Background: In Germany customers have a right of withdrawal which is guranteed by law. It is very different to return policies for example of Amazon or Ebay. This right is always guranteed beside any return policies. Any customer can make use of it. It is a right to break the contract for the purchase from the side of the customer and a company just has to accept it – a company has no choise to deny a withdraw. If a customer withdraws his contract, you must pay him back the money for the puchase. On the other side the customer has to send the product back to you.
The general law that gurantees this right to the customer is stated in § 355 BGB.
The right of withdrawal is called “Widerrufsrecht” in German and ist the most essential thing in online business that foreign seller should know about.
There are many things to take care about when you are runnning a business in Germany beside the always asked questions:
- Who pays the shipping cost for returns?
- What is the right of burden of proof reversal within the first six months after the date of purchase?
- My customer has revoke the contract, now he wants me to give him a shipping address in Germany, is that ok?
- What is an imprint (impressum) and what does it need to show?
When you are selling inside Germany, for example on Amazon or Ebay, you are obligated by law to fullfil some basic legal things like all companies inside Germany:
You need an imprint stated in § 5 TMG. The imprint must have some informations about your company like address, how to make contact, the legal entitiy of your company, officers in charge and others.
You need to be aware about the customer law and the rights that arise from it for customers. You need to know about defect as to quality (§ 434 BGB) and how to handle such after sales.
You need to have very precise knowledge about the right of withdrawal and how to set up a revocation instruction. By law you are obligated to inform any customer about his right at the time of conclusion of the contract. This is stated in § 312d BGB, Art. 246a EGBGB.
The German Government has published differnt forms for different cases that can be used to inform customers. For selling online the most comonly used form is Anlage 1 zu Art. 246 a § 1 Abs. 2 S. 2 EGBGB.
The form must be filled very precise, the smallest mistakes will lead to a longer time period for the right of withdrawl.
You can buy our basic guide about customer law in Germany that provides basic informations how to set up your business from the legal side.
Beside that we will be happy to help you checking your offers and company informations from the legal side and advice is you if there is any need for an action.
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