Law of unfair competition

The German law of unfair competition comprises on the one hand regulations on Business to Consumer (B2C) relations and on the other hand regulations for Business to Business (B2B) relations. While the regulations on B2C relations have been widely harmonized by the European Union, the regulations on B2B relations are almost exclusively governed by national law.

The law of unfair competition is of considerable practical importance in Germany. One of the main reasons: In case of breach of the German law of unfair competition, any competitor is entitled to file for an injunction and damages if the other party does not sign a cease-and-desist declaration and reimburses the costs of the cease-and-desist letter.

This is a – non-exhaustive – list of recurring cases in breach of the German law of unfair competition:

• Violation of statutory obligation to inform, for example deficient legal information regarding consumer rights or deficient information regarding company details etc..
• Misleading advertising for example regarding the age or size of the undertaking etc. .
• Annoying advertising, for example spam e-mails, telefax advertising etc..
• Imitation and copying of goods and services of a competitor etc.
• Use of customer data by a former employee working for a competitor

We would like to assist you in enforcing the law of unfair competition against acts of your competitors that are in breach of the law. Likewise we would like to assist you in defending yourselves against alleged breaches of unfair competition law. Finally, we also offer to examine if your intended advertising campaigns are in line with the German law on unfair competition.