BGH Decision on AvP Bankruptcy: No Right to Separate Claims

The Federal Court of Justice (BGH) has delivered a significant ruling in the ongoing bankruptcy proceedings of the private billing center AvP, denying the right to separate claims by a pharmacist involved in the case. This decision comes after AvP filed for insolvency in September 2020, leaving numerous pharmacists without their last outstanding payments from health insurance providers.

A pharmacist sought clarity from the appointed insolvency administrator, Jan-Philipp Hoos, regarding the last collection of funds from health insurers and filed a lawsuit to assert her claims. The contracts between the pharmacist and AvP stipulated that she assigned her current and future claims against the payers to AvP, granting the billing center the authority to transfer these claims to financial institutions responsible for processing payments.

Specifically, the dispute centers around an amount of approximately EUR175,000 owed to the pharmacist for services rendered in August 2020. The pharmacist requested information from Hoos about the timing of when payments were collected from the health insurers, as well as whether these actions were conducted by AvP or by Hoos himself. Additionally, she inquired if the funds had been deposited into AvP's business account or a trust account managed by the insolvency administrator.

Both the Düsseldorf District Court and the Higher Regional Court dismissed her claims, determining that it would be unreasonable for the insolvency administrator to trace hundreds of thousands of transactions to individual service providers. The courts concluded that the pharmacist did not possess any rights to separate claims. Following these decisions, the pharmacist escalated her case to the BGH, which held a hearing on the matter on September 17.