Bernhard Syndic

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Bernhard Syndikus (born February 14, 1958 ) is a German former lawyer from Munich . Together with Günter Freiherr von Gravenreuth , he worked in a law firm from 1988 to 2005 . He ran his own law firm until 2012, and his clientele essentially consisted of clients in the field of telecommunications law.

Act

During his work in the law firm Gravenreuth, Syndikus was managing director of the telecommunications and former dialer provider Global Netcom GmbH (now based in Güstrow); he still holds this position today. Legal counsel also manages the business of MV Medien GmbH in Munich.

As a lawyer, Syndikus was involved in the development of the case law on so-called “ forum liability ”.

Convictions

The public prosecutor in Mühlhausen sued Bernhard Syndikus in winter 2005 for unauthorized commercial copying of copyrighted works. According to the public prosecutor, he and clients and third parties were responsible for running the website " FTP-Welt ", which sells illegally copied films and software and has made almost one million euros in sales since June 2003. The public prosecutor's office suspected the lawyer of having been involved in money laundering and the formation of a criminal organization. a. procured an escrow account as well as contacts to operators of bogus companies and data servers not subject to German law for the black copies . The 6th large commercial criminal chamber at the regional court in Mühlhausen sentenced Bernhard Syndikus in February 2007 for aiding and abetting the commercial reproduction and distribution of copyrighted works to a 10-month imprisonment, the execution of which was suspended, and to a fine of 90,000 euros.

Almost exactly five years later, on February 17, 2012, Bernhard Syndikus was found guilty of commercial fraud by the Osnabrück Regional Court, along with three other defendants. According to the conviction of the court, the perpetrators had repeatedly had greeting cards sent to them in several cases between March 2004 and August 2005 in order to first warn the respective companies and then finally collect the agreed contractual penalties if they repeated. The LG Osnabrück imposed a prison sentence of 15 months on the legal counsel, which was suspended on probation.

Legal proceedings

In August 2005, the IT news portal heise.de reported that Mario Dolzer, one of Syndikus' clients, was using a Trojan to search for domains that had become vacant , for which Syndikus would then act as Admin-C . Syndic denied these reports and denied being registered as Admin-C for such domains. In the forum set up by Heise-Verlag for this report, there were postings in which, among other things, DoS attacks on the server of the Dolzer company were called.

For this reason, Syndikus had issued a warning to Heise-Verlag to refrain from participating in their forums so that calls for DoS attacks on his client's server were distributed. Heise deleted the relevant posts and spoke of users "letting off steam", but did not want to guarantee that similar posts would be prevented in the future before they were published. The client affected by the call for a DoS attack then obtained an injunction from the Hamburg district court .

In the opposition proceedings initiated by Heise-Verlag, this preliminary injunction was confirmed by the court in December 2005. The reasons for the verdict stated that these forums were "a particularly dangerous facility" due to previous contributions. The LG Hamburg relied on the BGH decision “Internet auction I” on Internet auctions and affirmed liability as in the case of “particularly dangerous facilities” . This jurisprudence requires that the provider of third-party content not only stop legal violations committed by users, but must also ensure in future that such legal violations cannot recur.

The Hamburg Regional Court tightened this case law and said that if this was not possible for personnel reasons, either the resources would have to be increased or the scope of the service would have to be restricted. The Heise magazine publisher appealed against the judgment of the Hamburg Regional Appeals a. This was rejected on August 22, 2006, but the control obligations for the web forums imposed on the publisher by the Hamburg Regional Court were restricted by the Hamburg Higher Regional Court.

Heise-Verlag reported both on the start of the trial in the "FTP World" case and on the judgments in those proceedings. Only the first names and the first letter of the surname of the accused were used, which was still completely sufficient for recognizability in individual cases (see the decision of the BGH in NJW 1971, 698, 700 - Pariser Liebestropfen).

In connection with the topic of “Legal counsel and domain grabbing”, the British company Laten8 appeared again and again, for which Legal Counsel also acts as Admin-C of de-Domains.

In April 2007, the Bavarian Broadcasting Corporation revealed connections between the Syndikus and the operators of other so-called “ subscription traps ”. Among other things, it became known in this way that Syndikus also founded a company Net Content Ltd. whose "director" Michael Burat has not only been controversial in the network scene for a long time, but has also been a long-time close friend of the legal counsel. Burat is not only linked by a friendship of many years. According to investigations by the Osnabrück public prosecutor's office, both are suspected of joint blackmail . According to these investigations, Burat is said to have sent himself so-called "e-cards" using false or fictitious names and e-mail addresses and then warned the operators of the e-card services concerned about "spam" via the syndic. The unlawful income obtained in this way in the form of warning costs is said to have been shared by the Syndic and Burat. As in the case of “FTP-Welt” before, the lawyer denies any involvement and any knowledge of the actions of his “client” Burat, who, according to a report by Heise.de, has already made a partial confession.

The further broadcast of this report was forbidden to the journalist and the Bavarian Broadcasting Corporation by the regional court in Frankfurt am Main.

The Osnabrück public prosecutor brought charges in this matter to the regional court on December 2, 2009. The trial began on February 17, 2011 before the 15th Large Criminal Chamber of the Osnabrück Regional Court. Bernhard Syndikus was sentenced on February 17, 2012 to a prison term of 15 months, which was suspended. The against the judgment of the Federal Court pickled revision was rejected in April 2013, which the district court judgment became final.

In 2009, the lawyer represented Katja Günther, also known as the “subscription trap” debt collection attorney, in proceedings before the Karlsruhe district court, which ended with Günther being sentenced to pay compensation.

In a judgment of March 24, 2014, Az. 3 AnwG 71/13, the Lawyers' Disciplinary Court responsible for Bernhard Syndikus found the person concerned guilty of the obligation incumbent on him to exercise his profession conscientiously and to show himself worthy of respect and trust, which requires the lawyer to have culpably violated the law by committing fraud in 31 cases as well as attempted fraud in 33 cases and by acting irresponsibly in 64 cases. He was therefore expelled from the legal profession.

Bernhard Syndikus appealed against this judgment. The Munich Lawyers' Disciplinary Court rejected the appeal in a ruling of November 10, 2014 - BayAGH II 6/14. The exclusion of Bernhard Syndikus from the legal profession became final. The detailed reasoning of the Munich Lawyers' Disciplinary Court sees the serious misconduct of the person concerned as a “threat to the administration of justice”, which makes the exclusion from the legal profession appear necessary and reasonable in order to maintain the functionality of the administration of justice.

This decision is final. The Federal Court of Justice rejected the appeal by Bernhard Syndikus on April 22, 2015 as unfounded.

swell

  1. ↑ HRB 163119 Munich ( Memento of November 3, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), August 20, 2006
  2. ↑ heise.de: Judgment: Heise is liable for forum contributions even without knowledge , December 5, 2005
  3. ^ Warez raid on Munich lawyer , heise.de, September 16, 2007
  4. ↑ Suspended sentences for FTPWelt operators , heise.de, February 21, 2007
  5. ↑ a b suspended sentence for subscription trap operator Burat. Verlag Heinz Heise , accessed on February 17, 2012 .
  6. ↑ a b Jura-Forum.de: suspended sentence for Internet warning fraudsters legal , April 17, 2013
  7. ^ Judgment of the BGH of March 11, 2004, I ZR 304/01
  8. ↑ Hamburg Higher Regional Court presents reasons for the “Heise forum judgment” , heise.de, August 28, 2006
  9. ↑ Process start in the case of FTPWelt , heise.de, January 17, 2007
  10. ↑ Public prosecutor investigating warning fraud , Heise.de, June 10, 2006
  11. ↑ Main proceedings against six alleged commercial Internet fraudsters begin . landgericht-osnabrueck.niedersachsen.de. February 16, 2011. Retrieved June 7, 2012.
  12. ↑ Subscription trap lawyer has to pay damages , Heise.de, August 25, 2009
  13. ↑ gesetze-bayern.de: Munich Lawyers' Court, judgment v. 11/10/2014 - BayAGH II 6/14
  14. ↑ BGH decision of April 22, 2015 Az. AnwSt (R) 1/15

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Syndic, Bernhard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer
DATE OF BIRTH February 14, 1958