The case: an escalated dispute over two managing directors
Two shareholders each held 50% of a GmbH acting as general partner of several investment limited partnerships — both shareholders were also managing directors. From early 2024, disagreements between them escalated: at a shareholders’ meeting, each shareholder camp voted to remove the managing director from the other camp for good cause. A series of interim injunction proceedings between the parties followed — the decision discussed here was already one of several proceedings running in parallel.
After a further removal of one managing director in April 2025, the opposing side applied for an interim injunction to prohibit him from continuing to manage and represent the company — based on several alleged breaches of duty, including refusing access to correspondence, failing to respond to requests for information, and blocking email access.
The Regional Court’s dismissal
The Berlin II Regional Court dismissed the application for interim relief — on two independent grounds: neither had good cause for removal been credibly shown (the allegations were not sufficiently serious, and the individual concerned had held office unchallenged for years), nor was there a basis for urgency. The applicant had not credibly shown a concrete risk situation; the continued registry entry alone did not establish urgency.
The unsuccessful party appealed — and subsequently applied for a one-month extension of the deadline for the statement of grounds of appeal, citing counsel’s annual leave and ongoing work overload. The extension was granted; the brief was filed on the very last day of the extended deadline.
The central point: self-defeat of urgency
The Court of Appeal (Kammergericht) Berlin dismissed the appeal — and in doing so did not even need to decide the actual substantive question of whether good cause for removal existed at all. What proved decisive was a purely procedural point: the self-defeat of urgency (Selbstwiderlegung der Dringlichkeit).
The principle, originally developed in unfair competition law, contains — according to settled case law — a generalisable core that also applies in corporate law: anyone who, in interim relief proceedings, delays the matter themselves — whether before filing or during the pending proceedings, including on appeal — regularly demonstrates that the matter is, in truth, not urgent to them. The applicant must do everything within their power to obtain the injunction as swiftly as possible.
Specifically: anyone who has the deadline for the statement of grounds of appeal extended by a not insignificant period and then largely or fully exhausts that extension regularly defeats urgency — unless special circumstances of the individual case indicate otherwise. No such special circumstances existed here: the case was neither unusually complex nor extensive (the Regional Court’s judgment ran to eight pages, the statement of grounds of appeal to under twenty), and the handling lawyers were already fully familiar with the facts and legal issues through several parallel proceedings.
Where the line runs: statutory deadlines yes, extensions no
The distinction drawn by the Senate is of considerable practical significance. Simply exhausting the statutory deadlines for filing and reasoning an appeal (Sections 517, 520 (2) sentence 1 of the German Code of Civil Procedure, ZPO) is unobjectionable — every appellant is entitled to this without it being held against them. The position is different once an additional extension is requested and used: markedly stricter standards apply in interim relief proceedings than for the extension itself. While the first extension under Section 520 (2) sentence 3 ZPO already requires only “substantial reasons” — such as counsel’s workload — the applicant in interim proceedings must meet considerably higher requirements for the extension not to defeat urgency.
Counsel cannot rely on their own professional workload from other matters or on holiday absence — within urgent proceedings, counsel must arrange representation or deprioritise less urgent matters. Counsel’s conduct is attributed to the party under Section 85 (2) ZPO.
No protection of legitimate expectations from the grant of the extension
It is also notable how the court rejected an obvious counter-argument: the applicant had argued that the court’s grant of the requested extension had created a legitimate expectation that it would not later treat the exhaustion of that extension as defeating urgency. The Court of Appeal expressly rejected this: granting an extension is subject to different, lower requirements than the later assessment of whether the proceedings were conducted with the expedition urgency requires. Nor was the court obliged to warn of the possible consequences when granting the extension — at the time of that decision, it remains open whether, and to what extent, the extended period will actually be used.
Practical consequences for the conduct of proceedings
For the practice of interim relief — particularly in disputes over corporate officers such as the removal of managing directors — clear guidance can be drawn from this decision:
First: urgency is not a question that arises only when the application is filed. It must be actively preserved throughout the entire proceedings — including any appeal. A party that loses at first instance in interim relief and appeals must pursue the matter with the same urgency as when the application was first filed.
Second: requests to extend deadlines on appeal are a considerable tactical risk in interim proceedings. Unlike in main proceedings, where a more generous practice applies, even a single, not strictly necessary extension can bring down the entire case — regardless of whether the underlying substantive claim exists.
Third: counsel’s holiday planning and workload are not a viable justification for an extension in interim proceedings. Anyone conducting interim proceedings must organisationally ensure the matter is handled on time even in the event of absence or workload pressure — for example through timely internal cover arrangements.
Fourth: anyone relying on interim relief in a dispute over corporate officers — whether to effectively undermine or to enforce a removal — should plan from the outset for consistently expedited conduct of proceedings, including the reserve capacity to manage the appeal stage without requesting an extension if necessary.
This article presents a simplified overview of the legal position and does not replace advice in individual cases.