{"id":10676,"date":"2015-07-21T10:00:54","date_gmt":"2015-07-21T08:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kpw-law.de\/?p=10676"},"modified":"2025-10-09T16:00:20","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T14:00:20","slug":"asterisk-unfair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/avantcore.de\/en\/asterisk-unfair\/","title":{"rendered":"Asterisk unfair?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>In advertising with price discounts, special offers and vouchers, asterisk references can refer to the conditions that usually restrict the offer. The Freiburg Regional Court had to decide on the anti-competitive nature of an advertisement in which an asterisk reference was made, but the consumer first had to search for the corresponding footnote.<\/strong><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/avantcore.de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/rrw.png\" alt=\"Sun at AVANTCORE\" width=\"386\" height=\"167\" \/>The subject of the legal dispute is claims for injunctive relief under competition law by a competition association that objected to the print advertising of a retailer. The retailer had advertised in the form of a flap, which was placed around the outside of the front page of a daily newspaper as an advertising envelope. The association complained that the advertising campaign<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">\"19% VAT free*\"<\/p>\n<p>although it contains an asterisk reference, this reference is not resolved on the same page, but on the reverse of the double-sided advertising cover.<\/p>\n<p>The retailer considered its advertising to be lawful and did not issue a cease-and-desist declaration.  An attentive consumer would recognize the asterisk in the eye-catching advertisement and then also notice the resolution of the footnote, even if it was not placed on the same page as the advertisement.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Decision of the court<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/openjur.de\/u\/763348.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Freiburg Regional Court ruled in its judgment of 23.02.2015 - Ref. 12 O 105\/14<\/a>that an asterisk reference on the same page must be resolved.<\/p>\n<p>In particular, anyone who does not clearly and unambiguously state the conditions for taking advantage of sales promotions such as discounts, bonuses or gifts is acting unfairly and therefore anti-competitively. This was not the case here.<\/p>\n<p>Furthermore, there were no reasons inherent in the media for not dissolving the asterisk reference on the same page, so that there was no exception.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The average consumer assumes that footnotes and notices are on the same page. Consumers cannot be expected to search for the conditions first.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In advertising with price discounts, special offers and vouchers, asterisk references can refer to the conditions that usually restrict the offer. The Freiburg Regional Court had to decide on the anti-competitive nature of an advertisement in which an asterisk reference was made, but the consumer first had to search for the corresponding footnote.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24106,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"single-custom-blog.php","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3049],"tags":[291,161,779,780,781,687,782,411,402],"ppma_author":[3074],"class_list":["post-10676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-allgemein","tag-gutschein","tag-preisnachlass","tag-printwerbung","tag-sonderaktion","tag-sternchenhinweis","tag-unterlassungsanspruch","tag-werbemittel","tag-werbung","tag-wettbewerbswidrig"],"authors":[{"term_id":3074,"user_id":2,"is_guest":0,"slug":"christopher","display_name":"Christopher A. Wolf, MBA","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d77b27aefd4397c799a733f749d595a8fcc78bb7c7d693f68096bc2bfc958647?s=96&d=mm&r=g","first_name":"Christopher A.","last_name":"Wolf, MBA","user_url":"","description":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/avantcore.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/avantcore.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/avantcore.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avantcore.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avantcore.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/avantcore.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10676\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avantcore.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/avantcore.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avantcore.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avantcore.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10676"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avantcore.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=10676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}