The Transposition Act for the Second EU Directive on Payment
Services (PSD2) has been in force since January 13, 2018. In
particular, the new legal provision of Section 270a Civil Code is
important, as it prohibits the charging of fees for the use of SEPA
payments or payment cards such as VISA and Mastercard. At the end
of 2018, a first key ruling was issued in Germany, which also
denied the admissibility of charging payment fees for the use of
PayPal and SOFORT payment.
A. Summary of the case
The German "Wettbewerbszentrale" (Center for
Protection against Unfair Competition) filed a complaint against
tour bus company FlixMobility GmbH, which operates the
"Flixbus" bus service, because the company had requested
fees for the payment of online bookings via PayPal and SOFORT bank
payment. In its December 13, 2018 ruling, Munich Regional Court
(Case 17 HK O 7439/18) prohibited Flixbus from levying fees for
payments via PayPal and SOFORT payment. The court held that
