In March 1989 a married couple sat down with an adviser at their Volksbank. They had been customers for more than 20 years. Their savings of about 55,000 marks were in safe products such as fixed deposits and federal savings bonds. A bonus savings contract of 20,000 marks had just matured. The adviser showed them a list from the bank’s own program. On 16 March 1989 they bought 20,000 marks’ worth of bonds of Bond-Finance Ltd., a company of the Australian Alan Bond group. A rating agency had already downgraded the bond to B. It became practically worthless.
On 6 July 1993 the Federal Court of Justice ruled for the couple (XI ZR 12/93). No one had signed an advice contract. The court found that one existed anyway. The bank had accepted it stillschweigend durch die Aufnahme des Beratungsgesprächs, tacitly, by starting the advice meeting. The advice had to be anlegergerecht, suited to the investor, and the product had to suit him as well. German lawyers call the case the Bondurteil, the Bond ruling.