Overview
- The Hanseatic OLG in Hamburg on May 27, 2026 overturned a lower court ruling and rejected a claimant's demand for compensation beyond Haspa's contractual cap, finding no contractual duty breach in the August 2021 Norderstedt break‑in.
- Judges said the bank’s vault used a motion detector and other measures that met ‘branchenüblich’ or industry standards and applied an ex‑ante test that asked whether the specific core‑drill attack could reasonably have been foreseen before it happened.
- Haspa paid the contract maximum of €40,000 per box to victims in the Norderstedt case, while some claimants and lawyers continue to estimate total losses far above the bank’s figures.
- Victims of the December 2025 Sparkasse Gelsenkirchen‑Buer break‑in have filed civil suits and will see the first trial in Essen in early June, with plaintiffs and lawyers watching the Hamburg ruling for persuasive but not binding effect.
- The Hamburg decision is not yet final because the court denied revision to the federal court while leaving open a complaint, so further appeals could change legal precedent and the payments victims may recover.