Court case VI ZR 22/24 – Court Ruling (Germany, 2024)

A data subject brought a lawsuit against a social media platform alleging infringements in connection with a scraping incident. In particular, the data subject sought: * Non-material damages of at least €1,000 under Article 82 GDPR. * Injunctive relief, claiming that the platform failed to employ appropriate technical and organisational measures to prevent further unlawful disclosures, and that it relied on invalid or insufficient consent regarding the processing of the data subject’s telephone number. * Information about the personal data processed by the platform (likely under Article 15 GDPR). Both the lower court and the appellate court dismissed the claims relevant for the appeal. While the data subject withdrew their appeal on the merits, their legal representative lodged a separate counter-presentation (Gegenvorstellung) challenging only the litigation value set by the court. The legal representative argued that the litigation value should be raised from €3,000 to €6,500, in order to increase recoverable fees. The Federal Court of Justice dismissed the legal representative’s counter-presentation and confirmed the total litigation value at €3,000, broken down as follows: * €1,000 for the non-material damages claim, * €1,500 for both injunctive relief requests combined, and * €500 for the claim seeking information. The Court explained that, although the claims concerned alleged violations, the scope and importance of the injunctive relief did not justify the requested increase to €5,000. The original scraping incident had occurred five years earlier without further substantial harm, and the platform had already disabled the disputed feature. Consequently, the Federal Court of Justice found €3,000 to be an appropriate valuation in light of the circumstances and dismissed the lawyer’s petition for a higher amount.