Germany: Federal Court refuses to rule on injunction request by Kaspersky

On 2 June 2022, the German federal constitutional court issued a press release outlining why it will not rule on the injunction request made by the anti-virus software company Kaspersky. The statement follows a warning by the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) published against Kaspersky. Particularly, the BSI emphasised that Russian military actions threaten the EU, NATO and Germany, and Russian IT providers such as Kaspersky could either collaborate with offensive operations or be subject to spying. Therefore, companies and organisations using Kaspersky products may be more vulnerable to cyber-attacks and the BSI recommended replacing such anti-virus applications with alternative products. The Federal Court explained that the injunction request made by Kaspersky against such a warning does not have enough of a legal foundation to be actively considered. Instead, the Federal Court advised waiting for the actual trial where all the technical details of Kaspersky's services will be analysed and the specialised courts will be able to issue a legally-backed decision.