Procedural mootness via partial withdrawal of appeal and claim; cost allocation in civil litigation

The German Federal Court of Civil Procedure (BGH) declared the appellate proceedings moot and dismissed the case after the defendant partially withdrew its appeal and the plaintiff partially withdrew the claim with the defendant’s consent, resulting in a final cost allocation where the plaintiff bears one-third and the defendant two-thirds of the first and second instance costs, while the plaintiff bears one-fifth and the defendant four-fifths of the revision costs, with the dispute value fixed at 30,965 EUR. The underlying litigation involved a civil dispute reaching the final instance of a multi-stage procedural hierarchy, where the specific substantive subject matter is not detailed in this procedural order but resulted in a procedural termination due to the parties’ partial withdrawals. The legal basis for the decision rests on the principles of procedural finality and cost allocation under the German Code of Civil Procedure (ZPO), specifically §§ 91, 92, 97(1), 565(1), 516(3), 269(3)(2), (4)(1), and 344, which govern the consequences of partial withdrawal of appeals and claims on the status of the proceedings and the distribution of litigation costs.