The year 2025 so far produced several groundbreaking court decisions in the area of influencer law, which highlighted aspects of both competition law and medicine advertising.
Decision of the Cologne Higher Regional Court of September 11, 2025, file number 6 U 118/24
In this specific case, an influencer with around 120,000 followers on Instagram and 155,000 subscribers on YouTube had published a reel for an over-the-counter painkiller, in which she took the drug and then got a good mood. The cooperation was marked as a paid partnership, but the legally required information on risks and side effects in the video itself was missing.
The court classified the Instagram reel as an audiovisual medium in the sense of the Medicines Advertising Act, which functionally amounts to television advertising. According to paragraph 4 paragraph 5 sentence 1, the compulsory notice therefore had to be readable and spoken both in a legible manner. A mere link in the video description was not enough. In addition, the court assessed the influencer as a known person within the meaning of paragraph 11 paragraph 1 sentence 1 number 2 of the Advertising Act on the basis of her long reach. Advertising with well-known people is not permitted for medicines because their notoriety can have a strong influence on the trust of consumers.
The quintessence of this decision is that stricter standards apply to audiovisual drug advertising on social media and the mandatory information must appear directly in the video, while the reach alone is sufficient to classify a person as known in the legal sense.
Decision of the Frankfurt am Main Higher Regional Court of July 17, 2025, file number 16 U 80/24
The case concerned a dispute between two influencers, in which the defendant described the plaintiff as a hatefluencer in a YouTube video and accused her of spreading hatred and thus operating her business model. The plaintiff, a content creator and streamer on platforms such as YouTube, Twitch and Instagram, dealing with political issues, women’s rights and feminism, complained about both personal rights and competition law claims.
The court ruled that certain statements made by the defendant violate the plaintiff’s general right of personality and that she was entitled to injunctive relief in this respect. Competitive injunctive relief, however, did not exist because there was a lack of a concrete competitive relationship between the influencers and the statements did not represent any business actions. The statements did not represent any business activities, as they did not serve to promote the sale of goods or services, but had an information and entertainment function. These were editorial contributions where there was no advertising surplus.
The central statement of this decision is that there is no automatically a competitive relationship between influencers and critical expressions of opinion can be covered by freedom of expression, as long as they are not primarily used for commercial purposes.
Decisions of the Cologne Higher Regional Court of June 27, 2025, file number 6 U 52/25, 6 U 53/25, 6 U 58/25 and 6 U 60/25
The Cologne Higher Regional Court had to decide on four proceedings in which various applicants took action against suppliers of Dubai chocolate in urgent proceedings because the chocolate in question was actually not made in Dubai. The Senate agreed that the distribution of the products in accordance with paragraph 128, paragraph 1, sentence 1 of the trademark law in connection with paragraph 8 paragraph 3 number 1 law against unfair competition and paragraphs 127 paragraphs 1 and 126 paragraph 1 trademark law was inadmissible.
The decisive factor was that it was undisputed that the starting point of the hype chocolate, which was actually made in Dubai, was. The court also assumed the risk of misleading consumers required under paragraph 127 paragraph 1 of the trademark law. It also had to be taken into account that all the damaged products had additional information about the city or the Emirate of Dubai, such as the striking silhouette of the city of Dubai on the packaging or the advertising, this chocolate brings the magic of Dubai directly to your home. The court found that for a generic name like Wiener Schnitzel, which does not refer to a schnitzel from Vienna, less than about 15 to 20 percent of consumers have to understand the designation as an indication of origin. This threshold had not yet been reached with the Dubai chocolate.
The core statement of this case law is that geographical designations of origin only become pure generic names when only a tiny minority of consumers still expect an actual geographical reference, which is usually not the case with new viral product trends is.
Decision of the Federal Constitutional Court of April 24, 2025
The Federal Constitutional Court did not accept the constitutional complaint of an influencer against the influencer III judgment of the Federal Court of Justice for a decision. The complainant had argued that the verdict would inadmissibly interfere with her freedom to publish editorial content or product recommendations, even if no advertising was intended.
The Federal Constitutional Court made it clear that influencers must mark contributions for which they receive consideration or which have an advertising surplus as advertising. The labeling obligation is proportionate and serves consumer protection.
The fundamental importance of this decision lies in the fact that the case law of the highest court for advertising labeling also exists from a constitutional perspective and freedom of expression is not disproportionately restricted by the obligation to transparently label commercial content.