A cease-and-desist letter from Germany over packaging: what it is, and what to do with it

A letter arrives in German, on a law firm's letterhead, with a declaration to sign and about a week to do it. In German it is called an Abmahnung. It is not a fine, and it is not from the authorities. It is a competitor enforcing German packaging law privately — and the enclosed declaration, not the invoice, is the part that can follow you for years.

Why a competitor can write to you at all

This is the part that makes no sense from outside Germany. You broke a packaging rule — surely that is between you and the German authorities?

German law also allows companies to enforce certain rules against each other directly, without the state being involved. Rules that govern how businesses behave in the market fall into that category, and the packaging duties are treated as belonging to it: registration in the packaging register, participation in a recycling system, and, since 12 August 2026, having an authorised representative if you have no establishment in Germany.

The logic is that a shop which pays its recycling contributions is at a disadvantage against one that doesn't. So the one who pays is allowed to act against the one who doesn't. That is what has landed in your inbox: not an accusation of harming the environment, but an accusation of competing unfairly.

What is actually in the envelope

Four elements, and they are not equally important:

1. The allegation A description of what you are said to have done — typically selling into Germany without being registered, without system participation, or without a representative. Often with screenshots of your listings attached.
2. A pre-drafted cease-and-desist declaration In German, strafbewehrte Unterlassungserklärung. You promise to stop, and you agree to pay a contractual penalty if you do it again. This is the part that matters.
3. A demand for the sender's legal costs Calculated from a notional value in dispute, the Gegenstandswert. Commonly somewhere between a few hundred and a low four-figure sum, though it varies widely.
4. A deadline Usually seven to ten days, sometimes shorter. Short deadlines are normal here and are not in themselves a sign that the letter is fake.

Four things not to do

Don't sign the enclosed declaration as it stands. The standard response is not refusal and not signature, but a narrowed version — a modifizierte Unterlassungserklärung — which removes the wording that goes beyond what the law actually requires. Drafting that is a lawyer's job, and it is routine work for anyone who does competition law.

Don't ignore it. If the deadline passes without a response, the usual next step is an application for an injunction, which a German court can grant without hearing you first. At that point the costs multiply and you are dealing with a court file rather than a letter.

Don't just pay to make it stop. Paying the cost claim settles the invoice and leaves the declaration question exactly where it was. The cost claim itself may also be reducible, and in some constellations not owed at all — which is precisely the kind of thing a lawyer can assess and you cannot.

Don't write back in your own words explaining yourself. Anything you set out about what you sold, when, and in what volumes can be used later. The impulse to be helpful and honest is a good one; in this specific setting it is expensive.

What to do, in order

1. Diary the deadline today Extensions are often granted, but only to someone who asks before the date passes. A lawyer's phone call on day three is a very different thing from an apology on day twelve.
2. Check the sender is genuine Fake warning letters exist and are aimed at exactly this moment of panic. Look the law firm up independently rather than using the contact details in the letter, and be suspicious of any payment instruction to a private account rather than a firm's client account. Payment demanded by email only, or a request to pay before anything is signed, is a bad sign.
3. Instruct a German lawyer for competition law The field is Wettbewerbsrecht. This is not work your accountant can do, and it is not work I can do. Send them the complete letter including every enclosure, and the deadline date in the subject line.
4. Fix the underlying compliance in parallel This does not make the letter disappear, but it stops the situation getting worse — and once any declaration is signed, a further slip is no longer a rule breach, it is a penalty payment. What putting it right involves, step by step.

What the two sides of this cost

It is worth seeing the numbers next to each other, because they are not the same order of magnitude.

Which is the uncomfortable arithmetic of this whole area: the obligation itself is cheap, and being called out for not meeting it is not.

Three letters that get confused with each other

People describe all of these as "getting a warning", and they need different responses:

A marketplace deactivation notice. From Etsy, Amazon or eBay, no lawyer involved, no declaration enclosed. The platform is meeting its own checking duty. It is resolved by supplying a valid registration number, and it carries no legal claim against you. What to do when a platform asks for your LUCID number.

A letter from an authority. From the packaging register or a state body, potentially opening fine proceedings. This is public law, the deadlines and the response are different, and there is no cease-and-desist declaration to sign.

An Abmahnung. Private law firm or association, declaration enclosed, cost demand, short deadline. This article.

If this arrived because nobody told you

That is the ordinary case, and it is worth saying plainly: most sellers who get one of these were not cutting corners. They were selling handmade goods from Utrecht or Manchester and had no idea that a parcel crossing into Germany brought a German recycling obligation with it. The rules are genuinely obscure from outside, and the enforcement is genuinely sharp.

It does not change what you have to do now. But it does mean the underlying fix is smaller than the letter makes it feel — and that the whole obligation, laid out from the beginning, is a shorter read than you would expect from the tone of a lawyer's letter.

What I can and can't help with

I am an authorised representative, not a lawyer. I cannot answer the letter, negotiate the declaration, or advise you on the cost claim, and anyone in my position who offers to is doing something they shouldn't.

What I can do is close the gap underneath it quickly: hold the contract with a recycling system in my own name, take on the reporting, and be the representative your registration needs. If you send me your parcel volumes I can usually tell you the same day what the compliance side comes to, which at least turns one half of this into a known number while the other half is being sorted out.