Dr Matthias Ulshöfer and Dr Joachim Ott have successfully defended an international pharmaceutical company against unjustified claims for damages arising from pharmaceutical rebate contracts in a landmark case before the Munich Social Court. The actions brought by a major statutory health insurance fund were dismissed by way of a “judgment from the bench”.

The judgments are of considerable significance for the generics industry. In recent years, some statutory health insurance funds have begun confronting pharmaceutical companies with substantial claims for damages. The legitimacy of such claims has always been highly controversial. As a rule, the legal relationships between the parties are exhaustively governed by the publicly tendered rebate contracts pursuant to section 130a of Book V of the German Social Code (SGB V). There is no scope for claims for damages that go beyond the contractual provisions. Pharmaceutical companies are also not required to factor such claims into the pricing of their rebate offers.

For many years, OPPENLÄNDER Rechtsanwälte has been deeply involved in the tendering of pharmaceutical rebate contracts, under which statutory health insurance funds grant individual pharmaceutical companies the exclusive right to supply all patients with a specific active substance and, in return, secure substantial rebate payments on the dispensing price. In addition to public procurement issues in connection with the EU-wide tendering of pharmaceutical contracts, questions arising in the performance and administration of such contracts have increasingly come to the fore in recent times.