Anyone who has paid truck tolls for German highways and federal roads since January 1st, 2018. The amount of the toll payments made is insignificant. It is however important that you have paid the toll yourself on the basis of a direct contractual relationship with Toll Collect (or an EETS Provider).
If your company is now in insolvency, the insolvency administrator may be entitled to these claims. We cannot offer any legal advice in this regard.
All companies registered with Toll Collect have a contractual relationship with Toll Collect. Registered companies have a user number with Toll Collect which can be obtained from Toll Collect.
Even if you are not registered with Toll Collect, you may still have a contractual relationship with Toll Collect.
In particular, a contractual relationship is established if you have accepted the General Terms and Conditions of Toll Collect for the registered company. This also occurs when a journey is registered manually. Moreover, it is possible that a billing company (SVG, UTA, DKV etc.) has concluded acontract with Toll Collect on your behalf. If in doubt, please contact your billing company.
Claims for reimbursement from 2018 are at risk of being time-barred at the end of 2021. In this case, they can no longer be enforced. Hence, measures must be taken in due time to suspend the prescription period.
Only those companies that have a direct contractual relationship with Toll Collect (or an EETS Provider) can reclaim tolls. These are the companies that have registered with Toll Collect (or the EETS Provider) or that have otherwise concluded a contractual relationship with Toll Collect.
Depending on the individual case, this can potentially be both the lessee and the lessor, but not simultaneously for the same toll payment. As a generalrule, however, the lessor will be entitled to the claims.
IMPORTANT: It is not sufficient for a company to only have borne the tollcosts internally. This does not lead to ownership of the claim. If, for example, you have rented vehicles and the toll was paid directly by the lessor (Charterway, PEMA or similar), but then invoiced to you, this is insufficient, as in this case you have no contractual relationship with Toll Collect.
No, unfortunately this is not possible through the eClaim offer.
The exact amount of reimbursement will depend on the routes covered, the EURO standard, the number of axles and the permissible total weight of the respective truck. In all likelihood, toll payers have paid an average overcharge of four to seven percent between 2018 and 2021. These overcharges - possibly even larger amounts - can be reclaimed. It cannot be ruled out that the Federal Office for Goods Transport will adjust the tolls in the course of2021, so that the overpaid tolls might then be subject to reduction.
If you already requested reimbursement of toll payments from the BAG in the past, we may be able to include these claims in the further course of the proceedings. However, we cannot guarantee this, since a successful enforcement through eClaim depends on the specific wording of your previous reimbursement request and the progress of those proceedings. Please finalise the registration process and upload the requested documents in order to be contacted in case of a possible inclusion of prior claims.
ATTENTION: If you have received a corresponding negative decision from the BAG within the last month (and not just a confirmation of receipt from the BAG), you cannot register nor become a contractual partner of eClaims. In this case, please contact a trusted lawyer as soon as possible, since otherwise you might risk losing claims.
Any company that has a contractual relationship with Toll Collect or an EETS Provider can register (see FAQ No. 2). Each toll-paying company must be registered individually, group registrations are not possible.
If you already requested reimbursement of toll payments from the BAG in the past and have received a corresponding negative decision from the BAG within the last month, you cannot register nor become a contractual partner of eClaims. In this case, please contact a trusted lawyer as soon as possible, since otherwise you might risk losing claims.
If your corporate group or group of companies includes several individual companies, please make sure to register each company having its own contractual relationship with Toll Collect or an EETS Provider (see FAQ No. 2) individually (who paid is irrelevant).
The enforcement of your claims is free of charge for you! The costs are borne by us.
We only receive a moderate success fee in case of success (see FAQ No. 11). Detailed information on the conditions of the success fee can be found in the financing agreement.
15% if an out-of-court solution can be reached through negotiation;
23% if one or more model proceedings have to be conducted, but an action is not necessary in each individual case, and
33% if, contrary to expectations, legal action has to be taken in each individual case.
Different conditions apply ONLY for members of certain associations:
12.5% instead of 15% if an out-of-court solution can be reached through negotiation;
20% instead of 23% if one or more model proceedings have to be conducted, but an action is not necessary in each individual case, and
30% instead of 33% if an action must be brought in each individual case.
No. At this stage, we expect an out-of-court settlement. Even if it should become necessary to enforce your claims in court, you will normally not have to appear at a court hearing.
The European Electronic Toll Service (EETS) allows its users to access the toll-paid European road network with a single contract and a single on-board unit. This toll service complements the national electronic toll services of the Member States (in Germany: Toll Collect).
Not every company has a contractual relationship with an EETS Provider. If you do not use the services of an EETS Provider, you do not have to make a submission in this regard.
Yes. In which country the company is established is irrelevant for the reimbursement claims. It is only important that the company has paid tolls in Germany at some point since 1 January 2018.
No, your company does not have to be a member of an association.
In this exceptional case, do register with only one of these user numbers. Use one of the user numbers that you currently and primarily use. In the course of the registration process you will then be asked to provide the other user numbers.
Please check your spam folder first. Only if you have not received a notification to the e-mail address you provided during registration, please contact our customer service (service@eclaim.de).
Click on the link that leads you to the eClaim registration platform. If the link does not work, please try another internet browser first. In case of technical difficulties, please contact our support (service@eclaim.de).
Before you enter the platform, please enter the e-mail address you used when registering and choose a password that you can remember. It is advisable to take note of the password within your system.
No, the registration is not binding. Once you have registered, you will receive the contractual documents. Only then will you be asked to send us the signed contracts.
On the one hand, we need the contractual documents (fee agreement, financing agreement and power of attorney).
To be able to enforce your claims, we also need information about the toll payments. As far as possible, please indicate the exact amount of payments for each toll-paid journey in Germany between 1 January 2018 and 31 December 2018 (as well as for 2019, 2020 and for 2021 until the present day). We need this information because the reimbursement claims arise precisely with each toll-paid journey.
If you do not have the possibility to indicate the exact sums, you can indicate the toll payments resulting from the addition of your twelve monthly toll statements/settlements (for the year 2021 of the relevant monthly toll statements/settlements up to the current date) - or from your annual toll statements from the years 2018, 2019, 2020.
The monthly or annual toll statements from Toll Collect, from an EETS Provider or - only if no such statements are available - from another billing company for payments between 1 January 2018 and the current date shall suffice as proof.
Please provide us with the complete (not just the cover sheets) toll statements from the relevant years for the registered company. (Please note that each toll-paying company must be registered individually, group registrations are not possible.)
If possible, invoice items relating to the period prior to 1 January 2018 or constituting a service charge should not be submitted. You may be able to identify these exact amounts from the (electronic) individual journey receipts provided by Toll Collect
NOTE: We do not require individual journey receipts as a proof for toll payments, the toll statements are sufficient.
1. Download the contractual documents (fee agreement, financing agreement and power of attorney) through the registration mask.
2. Print the fee agreement and the financing agreement once as well as the power of attorney twice.
3. All documents must be signed by the authorized representative(s) with their full signature (no abbreviations, no paraphrases).
4. Upload the completed and signed contractual documents (fee agreement, financing agreement and power of attorney) through the registration mask.
5) Please do additionally send the two powers of attorney signed and in original by post to Hausfeld Rechtsanwälte LLP, Walter-Benjamin-Platz 6, D - 10629 Berlin.
PLEASE NOTE: With the exception of the powers of attorney, please do not send any documents or information by e-mail or post to eClaim or Hausfeld, as in this case processing cannot be guaranteed.
Please make sure that all submitted documents are made out to your or your company’s name. Any name changes and legal successions must be documented by appropriate extracts from the commercial register. At this stage, you do not need to upload the excerpts from the commercial register per se. We will contact you again in this regard if necessary.
These supporting documents are essential for the enforcement of your claims. You can request toll statements from Toll Collect / your EETS Provider or your billing company. Without supporting documents we will not be able to enforce your claims.
Only in case you cannot receive the supporting documents in time, you may provisionally finalize the registration process without the necessary documents. You must then submit the supporting documents as soon as possible. To do this, contact customer service (service@eclaim.de) as soon as you have received the documents.
You can upload the invoices spanning several months even if, for example, the invoice of January 2018 also includes trips from December 2017. The invoices of January and February 2018 will then include all toll journeys from January 2018.
See also FAQ No. 20.
As soon as you have registered, you will receive a link to our data mask to complete the registration process. Here you can enter all necessary data online and upload your supporting documents.
If you want us to enforce claims for reimbursement of toll payments made in 2018, registration by 8 December 2021 is required for reasons of prescription.
You have until this date to upload the required documents, in any case at least the remuneration agreement, financing agreement and power of attorney, and to enter the required information in the web form.
After this date we cannot guarantee that we will be able to take your claims into account.
After submitting the questionnaire, a pop-up appears indicating that this specific questionnaire can no longer be changed. The claim letter based on your data will be compiled in the following days.
You will then receive an e-mail with the created claim letter. Via the link in the e-mail, you can open the data mask again and make any corrections in the questionnaire. After saving and submitting the questionnaire, you will receive another e-mail with the updated claim letter, but only if you have made a decisive data change in the questionnaire.
In case of data field changes that are irrelevant for the claim letter, the claim letter is already final and you will not receive a new updated version.
In principle, almost every company that pays toll in Germany has a TollCollect customer number. If you do not know your number, you can obtain it from the Toll Collect GmbH.
After submitting the questionnaire, the data screen closes and you cannot upload any more documents at first. However, during the month of February 2021, you will be sent a new link from eClaim that will allow you to log back into the eClaim portal and upload your documents.
Until then, please refrain from sending documents to Hausfeld by email or post, as we do not have access to the eClaim portal and cannot upload them for you.
Your mail, which you send to our office address: Hausfeld Rechtsanwälte LLP, Walter-Benjamin-Platz 6, 10629 Berlin, will reach us by normal mail. However, due to the great interest in toll reimbursement, we receive a large number of letters every day, so that it takes some time to assign them to individual clients. We therefore ask for your patience and will only contact you if documents are missing. If you do not hear from us, you can therefore assume that everything is in order.
Please assist us with regard to incoming mail by sending only the original power of attorney by mail and clearly marking your mail with your eClaim number. Please upload all other documents, especially toll statements/receipts or the contracts, exclusively via the eClaim portal (see also question 29).
Unfortunately, we are unable to provide you with detailed advice with regard to the reimbursement claims that customers in turn assert against your company. Whether these customers are entitled to reimbursement claims, and if so to what amount, depends to a large extent on your contractual arrangements, which we are unable to review in detail.
We therefore recommend that you contact a lawyer you trust in this regard to clarify the extent to which you need to take action against your customers' demands for payment and whether it makes sense to sign any waiver of the statute of limitations agreement submitted by the customers.