Liability of influencers for labelling violations

The Regional Court of Cologne has made a decision on influencer advertising. The proceedings were not directed against an influencer herself, but against her agency, which managed profiles on social media.

Several posts were published on a 2 million followers account showing the influencer in various items of clothing. The profiles of the manufacturers of these garments were linked with so called “tags”. There was no labelling as a commercial publication or advertising. The influencer and the defendant had not received any consideration from the manufacturers for the linking, but had purchased the featured garments themselves.

In its decision, the Court granted the plaintiff’s application for an injunction against this conduct. It was incumbent on the defendant to mark the contributions as advertising. Failure to do so constituted a violation of Sec. 5a para. 6 UWG. This was because the postings were a commercial act with a commercial purpose, which was likely to induce a consumer to make a commercial decision that he would not otherwise have made.

Please read the detailed article of our technology media legal experts Thomas Hertl and Florian Eckert published in International Law Office here.