Auditor liability to cooperative members: displacement of tort liability by statutory audit duties and requirement of concrete causal link

The Federal Court of Civil Procedure (BGH) dismissed the plaintiff's complaint against the non-admission of revision, thereby upholding the Stuttgart Higher Regional Court's rejection of the appeal, which results in the defendant prevailing in the dispute over an auditor's liability to members of a cooperative for losses incurred. The court held that the central legal question—whether specific statutory liability provisions for auditors in cooperatives displace extra-contractual tort liability under German civil law—was not decisive for the outcome, as the lower court had independently grounded its decision on the plaintiff's failure to establish a concrete causal link between the audit activity and their investment decision, a procedural rationale that the appellate challenge failed to refute. The decision relied on German Civil Procedure Code provisions regarding the requirements for admitting revision, specifically the necessity of fundamental legal significance or the need for the development of law, and concluded that the absence of concrete causality was sufficient to deny relief without addressing the substantive statutory liability issue.