How a small GmbH defends itself against one of Germany's largest financial sales organisations.

What this page is about

The plaintiff TeslaNow GmbH operates a Tesla rental fleet in Leverkusen. In its proceedings before the Frankfurt am Main Regional Court, it submits not a single error but an entire architecture: it is convinced that what happened to it is not an isolated case. It sees in its own injuries a pattern — and suspects that the same alleged wrongs may be committed systematically by Deutsche Vermögensberatung AG (DVAG) and Generali Deutschland Versicherung AG.

This website seeks to make this plaintiff's perspective comprehensible — for observers, for those affected and for the public. It is citizen journalism from the plaintiff's perspective. It does not anticipate the court's decision. But it asks: if what the plaintiff submits is true even in part — what does that mean for the eight million customers whom, by the DVAG's own account, it serves in Germany?

EVIL — the term coined by the plaintiff

The plaintiff has given its thesis a name: EVIL — Erwerbsgerichtete Vertrauens­induzierte Lagertäuschung (earnings-oriented trust-induced loyalty deception). The term is unwieldy; the idea behind it is simple: a sales organisation outwardly builds the image of an independent advisor — coach, sparring partner, person of trust. Legally, however, it is a tied agent of a particular insurer. Both are lawful. What the plaintiff submits is not lawful is the systematic blurring of this distinction — through language, through training, through economic interlocking.

If the Frankfurt court follows the plaintiff in the assessment under § 286 ZPO, it changes more than a single contract: it sets a benchmark for a business model that, in Germany, concerns not one company — but structures that can be found wherever formal status disclosure and contrary trust-based communication stand side by side as a matter of plan. More on the Pillars page, in the Legal framework and under MFK.

The decisive legal proposition

On the question of camp affiliation, the plaintiff submits that the fine print is not what counts. What counts is what the customer actually believes after the advertising. If coach-style language, sparring-partner staging and brand ambassadors from sport and entertainment create the impression with the customer that they are dealing with an advisor in the customer's camp, that perception is highly relevant legally. A small status disclosure in the imprint does not, in the plaintiff's view, cure this.

More than three out of four respondents do not recognise the camp affiliation. Even with the imprint directly in view, the camp is actively misattributed. This, according to the plaintiff, is not opinion — it is measurement: representative, ISO-certified, large sample.

Why the plaintiff speaks of a "system"

The case file has over a thousand pages and, according to the plaintiff, is full of errors running in the same direction in favour of the defendants. Anyone can do the rough estimate: if each individual error runs in a given direction independently with a probability of ten percent by chance, the probability that thirty errors run independently in the same direction is 10⁻³⁰.

§ 286 ZPO — circumstantial evidence in accumulation

The plaintiff submits that the court's overall assessment will also be measured against this calculation. § 286 ZPO [Section 286 German Code of Civil Procedure]. The central doctrine: circumstantial evidence is not to be examined item by item — it is to be evaluated in accumulation. What may seem inconspicuous in isolation — an erroneous contract wording, a missing premium reduction, a postal service failure — can in sum produce a clear picture.

The Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof) requires a judicial conviction which — in its own words — "commands silence to the doubts without entirely excluding them". This threshold is high, but not absolute. The court must evaluate every strand of circumstantial evidence, pass over none, and give reasons for every conclusion — a safeguard against rash conviction as well as rash acquittal.

What the plaintiff does not assert

• The plaintiff does not assert a proven judgment. The court decides — expected on 2 December 2026.
• The plaintiff does not name individual agents, board members or brand ambassadors.
• The plaintiff does not speak for other affected parties. It makes its own case transparent — and invites others who have had similar experiences to come forward.
• The defendants contest the allegations as a whole. This website reproduces their position where it appears in the case file.