In a legal dispute before the Supreme Court Vienna the connection of the companies Lyconet International AG, Lyoness Europe AG, and mWA myWorld Austria GmbH was judicially established and condemned.
The presiding judge formulated it excellently in a 38-page judgment and clearly explained the context in legal terms.
From the judgment it is clear,
the acquisition of “coupons” like e.g. mVouchern, aims to acquire shopping points as a marketer and thus to be entitled to remuneration in the system of the myWorld companies. Therefore, there is an inseparable connection between the acquisition of the vouchers at myWorld Austria GmbH and participation in the pyramid scheme.
It is obvious that this approach of the myWorld companies is aimed solely at confusing the members. Due to the inscrutable change of the contractual partners and different service providers, the enforceability of a claim should be made more difficult. Apart from minor changes to the fantasy names for the products sold by the defendants, their business model has not been changed.
The members of the myWorld companies are led to believe that only one contractual partner is facing them. By a possible blocking of member accounts, a “registration” is forced and eventually completes the immoral proceeding of the defendant companies.
At first, myWorld Austria GmbH did not appear at all to the outside world and was only mentioned on the invoices, clarifies the court.
The presiding judge Andrea Bayer formulated it excellently in a 38-page judgment and explained the connection legally clearly.
MyWorld constantly claimed to have no business connections with Lyoness or Lyconet. This has now an end.
The marketer had filed a joint complaint against Lyconet International AG (Vienna), Lyoness Europe AG (Switzerland), and mWA myWorld Austria GmbH (Graz/Austria) and was fully justified.
The defendant myWorld enterprises tried to question the local and international jurisdiction as well as the legal process, which was however rejected.
In 2018 and 2019, the marketer had invested a total of approximately €20,000 in discount vouchers and clouds. The court clearly speaks of investment here as well.
Among other things, the court stated that neither in the known terms and conditions nor the Lyconet Compensation Plan (old and new) was a comprehensible comparison or conversion into a real monetary value to there mentioned the shopping points, units, Balance Commission, Balance Bonus, Coach, and Senior Coach Bonus, etc.
Although the myWorld enterprises maintained that by the discount coupons acquired Shopping POINTs would entitle to purchase advantages with partner-enterprises, to the court however one remains the proofs guilty. One remembers the alleged large partner-enterprises!
The marketer was approached and recruited by a man who introduced himself as an “employee of Lyconet”. He was mainly interested in information about investment opportunities with the so-called “clouds”. Besides, it was explained to him that you can invest money in clouds and from a certain point in time you will get back the full value of the invested money plus EUR 300 to EUR 400 per month. This would be a passive income without having to do anything yourself. You buy a share of a country and then profit from the purchases of the people in that country. This would be risk-free because people would always buy. The clouds are like a savings book for investing money. If you bring more people to buy the clouds, you can also earn money from them. However, they would have to buy discount vouchers every month to remain eligible for remuneration.
In March 2018, he paid an initial entry fee of EUR 2,350. Furthermore, he acquired his first “discount voucher” for EUR 50. For a further purchase of the “discount vouchers”, he paid EUR 50 per month from April 2018 to April 2019. The monthly payments were necessary to be able to invest in the clouds and ultimately receive their payouts. In March 2019, he also invested in four shares in “S-E2CC” for a total of €6,000. He paid €4,500 for three “German Customer Clouds” and for another €1,500 he bought shares in “Italia Cloud” in April 2018.
When the marketer questioned the payouts from the clouds, he was told at the meetings that things were not going well. However, there had been a major change, for which another EUR 500 per share for the clouds had to be paid for the respective shares. The distribution of profits would only be extended by three more years. One would no longer earn money from one country but from several projects of the company. According to the judgment, the switch will enable the company to invest in the new projects.
As was stipulated in the meetings, he paid a further €4,000 for his eight shares in the clouds he had previously acquired, i.e. €500 per share.
In March 2019, Lyoness Europe AG then intended to change the General Terms and Conditions and change of the contractual partners. For this purpose, they blocked the online access of customers who had not yet accepted the Lyconet agreement of March 2019. In doing so, Lyoness Europe AG advertised the change as follows:
“Lyconet – NEW. Why change something well-tried if it’s going well? Because it can go even better! Lyconet opens the door to a world with even more opportunities and advantages. (…).“ The usual slogans of perseverance.
The plaintiff had to register with the advertised “Lyconet NEW” in March 2019 and accepts the “Lyconet Agreement” by clicking on it, otherwise, he no longer would have had access to his member account. He trusted the statements of the Lifeline in the meetings that these were correct. He was not aware that with this procedure a new contractual partner – Lyconet International AG – was introduced to him. In the meetings, this was not announced either. When registering, he had to confirm that he was an entrepreneur, otherwise, no change would be possible. He was surprised about this but felt compelled to click on this “box” because otherwise he would not have had access to his member account.
Likewise, he had to accept the additional conditions for the purchase of mVouchers, whereby the mVouchers replaced the monthly discount vouchers. In return he had to accept the additional conditions for the purchase of mVouchers without reading them, notes the court.
Further from the judgment, it follows that the contract change was not plausible for the members. As Lyconet International AG is called, as Lyoness Europe AG was already called before in the general terms and conditions (“Lyconet”). The member’s membership number and the payment modalities always remained the same. As well as the account number of the recipient, which was always in the name of Lyoness Europe AG. The website for login access always stayed a www.lyconet.com. The member had to face „Lyconet” (see the “Lyconet agreements“) at all times. The contract forms refer to each other and cannot be read independently. Nor does myWorld Austria GmbH operate independently of Lyconet or Lyoness.
The fact that he visited Lyconet seminars/webinars and meetings regularly as a Marketer Lyoness/Lyconet seminars and meetings, was interpreted by myWorld, etc. as proof for its disadvantageously employership. His investments served alone for purposes of the investment of funds for his retirement provisions. He only visited the seminars/webinars in order to keep track of his investments, he assured, which is understandable and the court complied.
The court continues:
myWorld Austria GmbH, Lyconet internationally AG, and the Lyoness Europe AG knowingly caused in the procedure the impression that different circumstances and different sales contracts were present. For the plaintiff, the change of the contracts was not traceable. He was faced with “Lyconet”. As result from the general terms and conditions, this effect is quite wanted by the myWorld enterprises. Thus called the fundamental set of contracts since the beginning “Lyconet agreement”, although at first Lyoness Europe AG was behind it as a contracting party. Even the marketing program is called “Lyconet”. Finally, Lyoness Europe AG propagated a necessary “changeover” on its website. The members had no choice but to stick with the original contract and had to carry out the new “registration”, especially since otherwise they would not have had access to their data and payment overviews. To disguise the actual change of contract that took place here, the new agreement is again called the “Lyconet Agreement”. To further confuse the members, the new contractual partner is again Lyconet International AG. This creates the impression that nothing has changed. The membership number and payment modalities always remained the same.
The acquisition of the so-called “discount vouchers” and “clouds”, which were advertised as a secure investment, is only possible after the “Lyconet agreement” has been concluded. Initially, these vouchers were sold by Lyoness Europe AG and after a “switchover” by myWorld Austria GmbH. The different contractual partners who are confronted with “discount vouchers” when purchasing the “discount vouchers” and later “mVouchers” are not easy for members to recognize. Although the member had to accept terms and conditions once again, these again refer to the “Lyconet agreement”.
Have you understood everything? This is what contractual transparency looks like at the myWorld group of companies.
The judgment is at first instance and all three myWorld enterprises will go surely into an appointment, but as in Norway or Turkey, the procedure is only dragged out since one would like to avoid a promptly valid judgment.
