Introduction
Recently, a news story made the news, according to which an online shop allegedly had to provide a communication channel in its imprint that would answer consumer inquiries within 60 minutes. This was based on a ruling by the Bamberg District Court. It was stated that if no telephone number was given, then a response to inquiries by e-mail or contact form must be provided within an hour.
Is a phone number mandatory in the imprint?
The first question that arises at this point is whether a telephone number must always be provided in the imprint. In principle, the relevant regulations assume that a telephone number and an e-mail address will be provided (ECJ in the case C-298/07, para. 25). The ECJ does not infer from Art. 5 (1) (c) of Directive 2000/31/EC an absolute obligation to provide a telephone number, but the telephone number can also be replaced by another means of communication if this means of communication enables fast, direct and efficient communication. The ECJ ruling is about a contact form, but it also mentions fax or visiting the provider's premises, although we would question whether these last two alternatives are in line with the spirit of the directive in terms of online retail at the national or European level.
Reaction period for contact form according to the ECJ
According to the ECJ ruling, a contact form meets the requirements if customers receive a response within 30-60 minutes and if the customer is provided with a communication channel upon request that allows them to communicate even when they are offline, i.e. the customer is provided with a telephone number upon request. However, the ECJ ruling must be kept in mind at this point. The ECJ only had to decide on the case that a response to the contact form was made within 30-60 minutes. It said that in any case this is sufficient. Whether a response in 2 hours or 2 days would have been sufficient was not for the ECJ to decide. Therefore, it cannot be concluded from the ECJ ruling that a reaction must take place within 30-60 minutes. However, if you adhere to this time, you can be on the safe side.
The judgment of the Bamberg District Court does not provide any further clarification.
In the judgment referred to at the beginning, the District Court of Bamberg only repeated the requirements that the ECJ had already established years ago. However, the reasoning behind the judgment is surprisingly poor in view of the ECJ's long-established guidelines. In the case of the Bamberg District Court, the application specified a maximum response time of 60 minutes. However, the Bamberg District Court does not address this at all, although this would have been the crucial question.The Bamberg District Court should have provided a reason for this, since the ECJ has not yet set a maximum response time.
Maximum response time under the Directive may well be longer than 60 minutes
Art. 5 para. 1 lit. c of the Directive 2000/31/EC requires contact options that make it possible to make contact quickly and to communicate immediately and efficiently. E-mail is mentioned as a standard requirement for such a form of communication. It must therefore be assumed that responses to incoming e-mails should be provided at least within the usual response times for e-mail communication. A regular response time of one week would certainly be too long. Two days would be worthy of discussion. However, to be on the safe side, it is better to respond within 60 minutes or simply provide a telephone number.
Response time outside of normal business hours
If you were to demand a much shorter response time, you would actually have to discuss a follow-up question: Does the online shop operator have to meet these short response times 24 hours a day, seven days a week? Interestingly, neither the Bamberg District Court nor any other source we are aware of has ever asked this question. This means that the response period will only have to be met during normal business hours.
The statements represent initial information that was current for the law applicable in Germany at the time of initial publication. The legal situation may have changed since then. Furthermore, the information provided cannot replace individual advice on a specific matter. Please contact us for this purpose.