Hi, this applies only to "business transactions", not to private ones ... ... so i hope, this will not lead to less offers. We are already punished with the expensive shipping costs from the US, i think that's enough :-( Bernd On Wed, 03 Nov 2004 19:50:33 -0500, Joe R. wrote:

Am 3 Nov 2004 19:50 meinte Joe R.: Well, first of all, it wasn't exactly the ruling of the 'a German civil court' as the Register states, but rather the Bundesgerichtshof, which happens to be the highest civil and criminal court, so it's binding for all German courts. The Law cited itself is barely more than the incooperation of an EU law into German books. Furthermore it concerns only remote B2C transactions (mail order). And gives the customer a right to cancel any remote sales contract within a given time without further reasoning (aka if you're an eskimo and some telemarketer talked you into a new fridge, you may cancel it as soon as your mind is back to normal ... but then again, with all the global warming going on, it might be wise to look ahead) Last but not least, the ruling was less about this law, but rather if eBay is to be seen an auction (and therefore it would be extempted from the this law), or just as some kind of market place where buyers and sellers come together and do business on their own. The court did go for later argument, since a) eBay is not involved in the transaction itself and b) that the 'Acception of Tender' is not done by a licenced auctioneer. Now, the ruling has of course no effect on all private eBaying, nor does it imply anything for Sellers outside the EU. In fact the court did only maintain a position it already showed in several other cases about online auctions. For example there where at least two decisions that defined online autions as a way of legal contract findeing and more important as legal binding. So if some jerks push up the price of a ZX81 to 5 Grand, and don't want to pay, the seller could sue the highest bidder. Of course it works also the other way arround - if you get a Twiggy Lisa 1 for EUR 1, the seller has to deliver :) Another important ruling was that eBay (and similar services) are not responsible for copyright or trademark infrogment by their customers (unless they get informed). This put's online auctions at about the same legal level as for example the classifed sections of a newspaper. Anyway, to my opinion it's another good ruling to keep eBay clean. And yes, it may have implication for other EU countries, and the EU court might overrule it, but I doubt that. Gruss H. -- VCF Europa 6.0 am 30.April und 01.Mai 2005 in Muenchen http://www.vcfe.org/