By Dr. Julian Oberndörfer, CEO ERAG
29 September 2021
We were deeply saddened by the news of Klaus Parchent passing away last Friday September 24. Words cannot express our sorrow and our heart goes out to his family.
Klaus and I first meet in Brussels in the early 2000´s on an ERA Europe government affairs meeting. Klaus was the general counsel of QVC Germany, whilst I was representing the interests of HSE24 with regard to the new European TV directive, which was discussed at the time and which was due to be enacted.
The very intensive discussion within this committee and later with the EU institution convinced Klaus from QVC Germany, David Lancelot, General Counsel QVC UK and me to join ERA Europe Board of Directors, to form a very committed team to pursue the interest of our industry in Brussels.
Later Klaus changed his role to serve the industry as our independent Self-Regulation Officer. It was under his guidance when ERA Europe established a B2C procedure to allow customers from all over Europe to claim upon our industry members to act in compliance with our industry code of ethics.
The Teleshopping and DRTV business became meanwhile part of Klaus DNA so that he founded with his business partners the counselling company VENTERO, which was from day one a valued member of ERA.
Beyond all of these activities, Klaus continued running his own very successful law firm and had recently transformed it into “PFP Parchent & Fiedler Partnerschaft mbB, Rechtsanwälte Steuerberater” and was inter alia member of the Rotary Club Düsseldorf.
I remember that one day of our business travels I told Klaus that I have seen more fascinating places with him than with my wife. Ever since I was connected to this industry, Klaus had been around in one of his roles he had in our industry.
We will remember Klaus as a very lovely and friendly man who was very popular amongst the members of ERA. We have lost a business partner, a reliable and long term companion and I personally have lost a good friend.
Our thoughts are with his wife and his sons. Words seem inadequate to express the sadness.
