Germany - Verbraucherzentrale Nordrhein-Westfalen e.V.v. Aesthetify GmbH, 12 May 2026
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Verbraucherzentrale Nordrhein-Westfalen e.V.v. Aesthetify GmbH
| Court | Higher Regional Court of Hamm |
| Country | Germany |
| Parties | Claimant: Verbraucherzentrale Nordrhein-Westfalen e.V. Defendant: Aesthetify GmbH |
| Date Claim Issued | 12 May 2026 |
| Type of Claim | Cease and desist |
| Status as of June 2026 | Not final. Appeal to the Federal Court of Justice has been granted. |
| Summary of Key Background Facts | The case primarily concerns issues of liability arising from false statements made by an AI chatbot. The plaintiff is a consumer association; the defendant operates a website for a medical practice. On that website, the defendant’s customers and patients can communicate with a chatbot. There, they can book appointments and have their questions answered in real time. In response to specific questions, the chatbot stated, among other things, that the two doctors behind the defendant were “specialists in plastic and aesthetic surgery,” “specialists in aesthetic medicine,” and “specialists in aesthetic treatments.” That this statement is untrue was not in dispute between the parties. |
| Remedies sought | The claimant sought an injunction of the untrue statements. |
| Summary of key legal arguments | Claimant’s claim The claimant argued that the statement regarding the medical specialist titles – which was indisputably false – would mislead consumers. The claimant thus considered these statements to violate German Unfair Competition Law. In the claimant’s view, as the operator of the chatbot, the defendant was directly responsible for its automatically generated responses. Defendant’s defence The defendant argued that it was not responsible for the chatbot’s statements and that it could not be held liable for the chatbot’s misleading information. Court’s Judgment The court ruled that the chatbot’s responses in question constitute impermissible commercial practices by the defendant within the meaning of Section 5(1) and (2)(3) of the Unfair Competition Act and granted the motion, which sought, among other things, an injunction. The Court did not follow the defendant’s argument that the chatbot’s incorrect responses could not be attributed to it as its own business activity. Even if the chatbot had been programmed exclusively with correct data, the defendant would still bear responsibility for the false statements regarding the (non-existent) specialist titles of its managing directors. Since new legal questions regarding the attribution of false information provided by an AI chatbot are decisive in this case, the court has granted leave to appeal to the Federal Court of Justice. |
