Hengeler Mueller represents Victor's Group before the European Court of Justice in a landmark copyright case against GEMA

VHC 2 Seniorenresidenz und Pflegeheim gGmbH, a member of the Victor's Group, operates retirement homes. The collecting society GEMA brought a claim against it, seeking an injunction to prohibit the cable retransmission of broadcast programmes received via a satellite system within the retirement home. After the Higher Regional Court of Zweibrücken dismissed the action as unfounded, the Federal Court of Justice stayed the revision proceedings initiated by GEMA and referred several questions to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) regarding whether the retransmission of broadcast programmes within a retirement home constitutes an infringement of the right of communication to the public under Article 3 of the InfoSoc Directive (2001/29). If so, operators of retirement homes and comparable facilities would be required to obtain a paid licence from GEMA and other collecting societies. The proceedings are therefore of fundamental significance, extending well beyond the specific case and the elderly care sector.

In its judgment of 30 April 2026, the CJEU held that the retransmission of signals within the home does not constitute a communication to the public, as the residents who permanently live in the facility do not represent a "new public" (Case C-127/24). The proceedings will now continue before the Federal Court of Justice (docket no. I ZR 34/23).

Hengeler Mueller represented the Victor's Group before the CJEU.

Hengeler Mueller team for Victor’s Group                                                 

TMT: Tobias Schubert (lead), Albrecht Conrad, Prof. Wolfgang Spoerr (all partner), Róża Grzybowska, Maarten van der Werf, Johannes Weigl (all associate, all Berlin).