Case law

The following sites contain a selection of court rulings or their key points grouped according to the area of law that they deal with. Apart from the key points, there are also statements of the facts of the cases and comments on the rulings. Comments reflect our opinion and cannot claim to be complete. Please note that each ruling is based on a particular and individual case. Therefore, it is neither possible nor sensible to make generalisations. Rather, it is recommended to have the facts of your particular case revised by an attorney-at-law.

Court rulings in the area of health law:

• Delimitation between food and pharmaceutical products in favour of the latter in the case of a fitness product (Judgement of the Higher Regional Court Celle of 24th June 1999, 13 O 320/98).
• Mail-order pharmacy DocMorris (ECoJ): In its decision, the European Court of Justice said that the German prohibition on mail-order sale of non-prescription medicines is not compatible with the Community law.
• “Muscle building supplements” (Judgement of the German Supreme Court I ZR 34/01 - Muskelaufbaupräparate): Upon coming into force of the Community Directive (EEC) 178/2002, the delimitation between food and pharmaceutical products remains compatible with the established case law of the European Court of Justice concerning the meaning of the term „medicine” as defined by the Community law.