{"id":18986,"date":"2025-02-21T18:45:03","date_gmt":"2025-02-21T17:45:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/raue.com\/?p=18986"},"modified":"2025-02-21T18:45:03","modified_gmt":"2025-02-21T17:45:03","slug":"raue-client-docmorris-wins-landmark-case-before-the-federal-court-of-justice-bgh-on-the-admissibility-of-pharmacy-marketplaces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/raue.com\/en\/news\/industries\/raue-client-docmorris-wins-landmark-case-before-the-federal-court-of-justice-bgh-on-the-admissibility-of-pharmacy-marketplaces\/","title":{"rendered":"Raue client DocMorris wins landmark case before the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) on the admissibility of pharmacy marketplaces"},"content":{"rendered":"

Raue has successfully represented DocMorris in landmark proceedings against the Chamber of Pharmacists North Rhine (<\/span>Apothekerkammer Nordrhein)<\/span> on the permissibility of selling medicines via online marketplaces.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

On February 20, 2025, the Federal Court of Justice issued a ruling in which it ruled in favor of DocMorris (I ZR 46\/24). The reasoning will follow.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The subject of the legal dispute is the controversial and previously unresolved question of whether and, if so, which fees are compatible with the requirements of pharmacy law, in particular the ban on third-party ownership and the “prescription brokerage ban” introduced by the VOASG. The BGH has now assessed DocMorris’ challenged marketplace as compliant with pharmacy law.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Chamber of Pharmacists North Rhine had challenged DocMorris’ marketplace model on the grounds that a fee of 10% of the sales price for over-the-counter medicines and a flat fee for the use of the marketplace, through which pharmacies can offer prescription-only medicines, violated Sections 8 and 11 of the German Pharmacy Act. The Karlsruhe Regional Court had upheld the action (13 O 17\/22 KfH). The Karlsruhe Court of Appeals overturned the judgment of the Regional Court insofar as it prohibited a flat-rate fee (6 U 418\/22). Both the Chamber of Pharmacists North Rhine and DocMorris appealed against the judgment of the Karlsruhe Court of Appeals. While DocMorris’ appeal was successful, the Federal Court of Justice dismissed the appeal by the Chamber of Pharmacists. The bans issued by the Karlsruhe Regional Court and the Karlsruhe Court of Appeals are therefore cancelled.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This decision of the Federal Court of Justice is of fundamental importance. It is the first decision of the Federal Court of Justice on the admissibility of fees for pharmacies’ participation in pharmacy marketplaces. For formal reasons, the Federal Court of Justice referred the case back to the Karlsruhe Court of Appeals to clarify the further question of whether the antitrust claims asserted by the Chamber of Pharmacists exist. Raue represented DocMorris in the first two instances. Attorney Dr. Thomas Winter took over the representation before the Federal Court of Justice.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Raue has been advising DocMorris comprehensively for many years on regulatory issues as well as on pharmaceutical advertising and competition law.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

(21 February 2025)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Raue has successfully represented DocMorris in landmark proceedings against the Chamber of Pharmacists North Rhine (Apothekerkammer Nordrhein) on the permissibility of selling medicines via online marketplaces.\u00a0\u00a0 On February 20, 2025, the Federal Court of Justice issued a ruling in which it ruled in favor of DocMorris (I ZR 46\/24). The reasoning will follow.\u00a0\u00a0 The subject […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":195,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[71,75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-industries","category-healthcare"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/raue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/raue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/raue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/raue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/195"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/raue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18986"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/raue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18986\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18988,"href":"https:\/\/raue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18986\/revisions\/18988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/raue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/raue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/raue.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}