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Legal Notices

1. Contents of the Online Presentation

The federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia shall not assume liability for the relevance to the current situation, for the completeness, the quality and availability of the information provided online nor shall it assume responsibility for any other technical failure. Any liability claims, which refer to material or non-material damage, and which may be caused by the usage or non-usage of the information provided or, respectively, by the usage of any incorrect or incomplete information, is generally excluded unless in cases of proven wilful or gross negligence by the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

The state of North Rhine-Westphalia reserves the right to change, amend and delete in whole or in part the publication of any information provided online or to discontinue publishing any information, temporarily or unlimited, without prior notice.

This web site does not provide any legal advice. Legal counselling is a right reserved to legal advisory professions. We cannot guarantee that the online version of a document available on this site will correspond exactly with the official text as published by the specific authority or body.

2. References and Links

As part of the information provided to visitors, this website includes also some links or references to other websites. As a rule, the respective provider of these third-party websites is responsible for such information. The state of North Rhine-Westphalia only provides access to these contents.

At the time when the link or reference has been provided to a third-party site its contents had been checked as to whether the information made available there could cause a possible civil or criminal liability. Nevertheless, we have no influence on the current or future design, the contents or the copyright on the third-party websites to which we provide a link or reference. Therefore, we expressly point out that we do not assume any responsibility for the contents provided on any such website we refer to and which has been changed after we have installed a link to its contents on our website.

The provider of the linked page alone shall be liable for illegal, faulty or incomplete content, and in particular for losses resulting from the use or non-use of information provided in this way and not the one who merely by way of web links refers to such publications made available on the internet.

3. Copyright and Trademark Law

If not indicated otherwise, all pages on this information server are protected by the copyright law. This applies in particular to texts, pictures, charts, audio and video files, including their arrangement on the websites. Reproduction or use of such pages (or any parts thereof) in other electronic or print publications and their publication (including making them public on the internet) is not permitted without a prior consent of the copyright holder.

The reproduction and the interpretation from press releases are authorized with proper references to the source. Permission for publication of the website contents can be obtained from the editorial department. Some pictures, charts, text or other files as a whole or in part can be protected by a copyright held by a third party.

All trademarks referred to in this internet presentation, which may be protected under a copyright held by a third party, are fully subject to the provisions of the trademark ownership laws currently effective for the registered owner. By mentioning a trademark in our web presentation we do not allow to draw a conclusion that the specific trademark mentioned on these pages is not protected by a copyright of a third party.

4. Privacy Statement

When you visit our online presentation we will save the following records:

  •  name of the requested file,
  •  date and time of request,
  •  amount of data transferred,
  •  error state, and
  •  IP-address of the person who made a request.

One day after a request has been made by a visitor the collected data will be converted into anonymous information by erasing the IP address in each data file. The collected data will be used only for statistical purposes. Neither this data nor any parts thereof will be passed on to any third party. No alignment with any of the already existing records will be done.

If the user is being offered to enter personal or business-related data (e-mail addresses, names, postal addresses) anywhere within this online presentation, this information shall be disclosed exclusively on an expressly voluntary basis. Here, too, your data will be treated as strictly confidential and shall not be passed on to any third party. The website of the German federal justice ministry does not employ cookies. No other techniques are applied either that allow to trace the access data of internet users visiting the web site.

5. Notes on E-Mail Communication

The electronic transmission using the e-mail address(es) referred to on this website serves exclusively the purpose of transmitting messages that are not required to be done in writing. Therefore, particularly in legal proceedings that are pending or are to be litigated no relevant letters, notices or other information can be sent electronically, because the identity of the sender cannot be determined with certainty.

Information on the electronic ways of communication in legal relations with courts and the prosecution authorities:

In legal proceedings, letters, notices or other information can be sent electronically if the respective government of the federal state has ruled to accept them by way of statutory instrument. These regulations concerning the electronic communication with judicial and other authorities can also be limited to certain courts or proceedings (cf. § 130a subsection 2 ZPO, § 55a subsection 1 VwGO, § 52a subsection 1 FGO, § 65a subsection 1 SGG, § 46b subsection 2 ArbGG, § 41a subsection 2 StPO, § 110a subsection 2 OWiG).

For details on how and when to submit letters, notices or any other information required in legal proceedings please refer to the respective online procedures.