According to the prevailing opinion, litigation value in unfair competition litigation is usually very high, compared with normal litigation in civil cases. By gathering the data of more than 3000 cases, the study was able to verify this impression. For consumer associations, which, according to § 13 sec. 1 a UWG, have the right to act as a plaintiff in cases of special interest for consumers, this means that the costs of losing a case, even one of average importance, can be ruinous. Courts have, however, the possibility to split up the litigation value, that is, fix a low sum as litigation value regarding the poor party (which in this case would be the consumer association), while the normal value remains valid for the other party. The main effect of the splitting-up is that the poor party, if the case should be lost, only has to pay both court costs and lawyer's fees according to the low value, while the other party, even if he won the case, has to pay the difference. As the study reveals, this regulation meets with varying degrees of approval from the courts' side; some courts seem to be fairly restrictive in handling it. Due to this, consumer associations cannot know beforehand if they will be granted the benefit of value-splitting, and thus have to refrain from any further procedural activities if they do not feel able to take the full risk — this effect, of course, from the consumer's point of view, is a very unfavourable one. On the other hand, it is argued that the obligation to bear part of the costs will place an unfair burden on the innocent winner. However, an enumeration of those cases in which one important consumer association, the Verbraucherschutzverein in Berlin, had to take advantage of the above mentioned litigation value assessment, shows that the effect for the opponent has not been as damaging as could have been expected.