Overview
- The Verwaltungsgericht Berlin ruled on Monday that the BVG must resume Nius’s advertising, offer a 28-day replacement U‑bahn booking, publish a court-ordered correction, and bear most of the €15,000 in procedural costs.
- The court found Julian Reichelt’s social-media post stayed within the bounds of freedom of expression and prohibited the BVG from calling the post “offensichtlich rechtswidrig.”
- Judges rejected the BVG’s security and corporate-reputation arguments by saying safety fears only justify excluding an advertiser when public order cannot be maintained even with police measures.
- The BVG had halted the campaign in early June after online calls for disruption, protests and activists following a Nius-branded double-decker bus, which the court acknowledged but deemed insufficient to justify removal.
- The BVG has appealed to the Oberverwaltungsgericht Berlin‑Brandenburg so the first-instance order is enforceable as an interim decision and could become a precedent on how public entities regulate paid speech on their property.