DR. SARAFI lawyers achieve further success against the controversial streamer “Shurjoka” — Higher Regional Court of Frankfurt clarifies: UWG does not easily apply to influencer conflicts

Frankfurt/Main, August 18, 2025 — In the appeal process before the Higher Regional Court of Frankfurt am Main (ref. 16 U 80/24), we were able to achieve another important success for our client. The streamer “Shurjoka” wanted our client to prohibit various statements in a YouTube video, based, among other things, on the Unfair Competition Act (UWG). The Higher Regional Court of Frankfurt has now decided that there is no competition law relationship between the parties and that the UWG is therefore not applicable. Our legal opinion was thus fully followed.

The dispute did not concern the first legal confrontation between the parties, but is part of an ongoing public and legal dispute between two wide-reaching content creators. While the Regional Court of Frankfurt had previously decided in favour of Shurjoka in part, this result has now been corrected following our appeal.

Background to the proceedings

Both our client and Shurjoka work as influencers and streamers. Shurjoka publishes content on political and social topics. In doing so, she is very forceful and often covers her political opponents with baseless reproaches. Our client comments on the behavior of other influencers and their dealings with the public, media power and political messages.

As part of a video, our client discussed, among other things, previous court proceedings in which certain statements had already been prohibited. Shurjoka saw this once again as an infringement of her rights and demanded omission, this time also on the basis of Section 4 No. 1, No. 2 UWG, i.e. due to alleged unfair commercial acts.

The Regional Court of Frankfurt granted the request for injunctive relief in part, although the Regional Court of Hamburg also considered the UWG to be inapplicable. Both sides appealed against this verdict.

Decision of the Higher Regional Court of Frankfurt

The Higher Regional Court of Frankfurt has amended the challenged decision and agreed with our legal opinion on key points:

There is no specific competitive relationship between the parties within the meaning of Section 2 Paragraph 1 No. 4 UWG. The statements at issue are not commercial acts within the meaning of Section 2 Paragraph 1 No. 1 UWG.

It is therefore clear that the dispute between influencers over content, criticism, reviews and public positioning is fundamentally a dispute under expression law, not competition law.

The court states this, inter alia, as follows:

• The fact that both parties are “streamers” is not enough for a competitive relationship.
• The defendant (our client) does not promote its own or third-party products in connection with the statements at issue.
• An increase in reach through criticism does not automatically lead to a reduction in sales by the other side.
• The content was clearly used to form opinions, not to promote products.
• The video was editorial content, not advertising in the sense of the UWG.

The Higher Regional Court thus makes it clear that negative or critical online disputes between influencers do not fall under the UWG simply because both benefit economically from their reach.

Evaluation of freedom of speech

It is true that the court prohibited three of the challenged statements due to lack of factual basis or assumed an untrue statement of fact, such as “targeted dissemination of fake news as a business model.” Otherwise, however, the plaintiff was unsuccessful. The vast majority of our client's statements were assessed as admissible expressions of opinion.

The injunctive relief claims are therefore based solely on general personality law, not on competition law. The scope of the UWG was thus correctly limited. Conversely, however, the decision does not mean that a competitive relationship between influencers is always ruled out. Instead, it must be examined in a specific individual case whether the requirements of Section 2 Paragraph 1 No. 4 UWG have been met. If this is answered in the affirmative, content may also be prohibited on the basis of Section 4 No. 1 and No. 2 UWG.

conclusion

With this decision by the Higher Regional Court of Frankfurt, an important standard was set for the distinction between freedom of opinion and competition law in the influencer sector. The UWG is not only effective because two people monetize a digital public sphere. It remains decisive whether there is a competitive connection in the specific posting.

We are pleased that the Higher Regional Court of Frankfurt has followed our argument and has thus provided an important service not only to our client, but also to legal security in the digital space.

For inquiries:
DR. SARAFI Rechtsanwälte
info@sarafi.de