Last reviewed June 2026. Reading time ~7 minutes.
What an Abmahnung actually is
An Abmahnung is a formal cease-and-desist notice. In Germany, competitors and specialised law firms can send one directly — no court needed to get started — accusing you of unfair competition under the UWG (the Act Against Unfair Competition). A typical one demands three things: stop the offending claim, sign a cease-and-desist declaration with a penalty clause for any repeat, and reimburse the sender's legal costs.
The important part for a foreign seller: this isn't Amazon suspending your listing. It's a private legal action, and there's an established cottage industry built around sending these. Listings translated straight from confident US marketing copy are the easy targets, because US copy leans on exactly the kind of claim German law wants substantiated.
The "Testsieger" trap
The classic landmine is the test-result claim — "Testsieger," "Stiftung Warentest," "Sehr gut," or any award or seal. German law doesn't ban these. It requires that you show your work.
If you advertise a test result, you must give the Fundstelle — the source: which test, and where and when it was published — and it has to be clearly recognisable and easy to check right there in the listing, not buried in fine print or left on the physical packaging. The Federal Court of Justice (BGH) has held this consistently, grounded in §5a UWG (misleading by omission): leaving out the source is itself the violation, regardless of how prominently you display the result. And using a test seal you aren't licensed to use is a separate problem stacked on top.
The other claims that bite
"Testsieger" is the famous one, but the same logic — can you prove it, right here? — catches a lot of standard US phrasing:
- "Nr. 1" / "Marktführer" / "#1 best seller" — a market-leadership claim needs a factual basis you can point to, not just confidence.
- Superlatives — "the best," "the most powerful," "unbeatable" — treated as objective claims you have to back up, not obvious puffery.
- Health, safety, and effect claims — "kills 99.9% of germs," "medical grade," "chemical-free" — heavily regulated and a frequent Abmahnung source.
- Green claims — "klimaneutral," "eco-friendly," "sustainable" — a hot enforcement area under tightening EU greenwashing rules.
- "Bekannt aus…" (as seen in…) — needs a real, verifiable reference, or it's misleading.
Why US sellers get caught
Two things collide. American listing copy is built to sound superlative and rarely cites a source, because on Amazon.com nobody sends you a lawyer's letter for it. German competition law, by contrast, treats an unsubstantiated claim as misleading by default, and — this is the part that surprises people — lets your competitors enforce it themselves. That combination means a translation that's linguistically perfect can still be legally radioactive if it carries the original's claims across unchanged. "Translated correctly" and "safe to publish in Germany" are two different bars.
What to do
To stay clear of it:
- Audit your listing for claims — every superlative, ranking, award, and health or green statement. If you can't cite a source for it, drop it or soften it.
- If you have a genuine test result, keep it — and add the Fundstelle clearly and legibly in the listing itself.
- Have a native German reviewer check the claims, not just the grammar. This is the layer machine translation and a language check both miss.
If an Abmahnung has already arrived: don't ignore it — the deadlines are genuinely short — but don't blindly sign the enclosed declaration either, as it's often written more broadly than the law requires. Get a German lawyer to review it before you respond. This guide is orientation, not legal advice, and that situation needs real advice.
This is one of four
The Abmahnung trap is the advertising-law pillar. Three others get non-EU sellers just as often:
- GPSR — a non-EU brand needs a named EU Responsible Person on the listing, or Amazon suppresses it. Full GPSR guide →
- VAT — store stock in Germany and you owe VAT from the first sale. Full VAT guide →
- EPR — packaging (LUCID) and electronics (WEEE) registrations, both required before you sell. Full EPR guide →
We cover all four in the free Amazon Germany course, and map the full picture on the compliance page.
Want a second pair of eyes on your listing?
Send me one ASIN and I'll run a free compliance check — the risky ad claims, plus VAT, GPSR and EPR, and whether the German copy is quietly costing you sales. You get a one-page read back, no pitch and no signup. If it's useful, good. If not, you've spent one email finding out.
Send a listing →Sources
- UWG (§5, §5a — misleading advertising) — Gesetz gegen den unlauteren Wettbewerb (gesetze-im-internet.de)
- "Testsieger" only with a Fundstelle — established BGH case law; see practitioner summaries such as IT-Recht Kanzlei
- If you receive an Abmahnung — consult a qualified German competition-law (Wettbewerbsrecht) attorney before responding
This guide is educational orientation, not legal advice. Marktreif is not a law firm. German competition law is fact-specific and enforced by private parties; whether a given claim is permissible depends on your evidence and wording — confirm with a qualified German attorney before relying on any of this. Key facts verified against official and industry sources as of June 2026.