On August 16, 2022, the administrative court in Düsseldorf ruled in favor of three self-employed people who had filed a complaint against the recovery notices from the state of North Rhine-Westphalia’s corona aid. The judge responsible found that both the application forms and the approval notices contained ambiguous wording. The plaintiffs should therefore have assumed that the emergency aid their sales losses and not, as communicated weeks later by the state government, only refers to the losses caused by the pandemic. “Obscurities are always at the expense of the authorities, not the recipient. That's just the way it is," the judge commented. It is not yet clear whether an appeal by the Higher Administrative Court will follow the judgment.
Almost 500 comparable cases are currently being heard at the Cologne Administrative Court alone.
The isdv already had the representatives of IG NRW Soforthilfe, Marc Schuirmann and Reiner Hermann, visit at one of its two-week online member meetings. Congratulations on your success!
According to estimates, there are probably more than 2,000 lawsuits of this type by the self-employed and smaller companies throughout NRW. Ultimately, however, only those who have already lodged an objection to their decision have a chance of being able to keep the total amount of the Corona emergency aid.
File numbers: 20 K 7488/20, 20 K 217/21 and 20 K 393/22
https://www.vg-duesseldorf.nrw.de/…/2022/2221/index.php
https://ig-nrw-soforthilfe.de/
#ignrwimmediate help #self-employed
(Photo: Homepage of the VG Düsseldorf)
