Lawyer for Greenwashing Cease and Desist Letters: Costs + Procedure

If a cease and desist letter lands in your mailbox: in 2026, thousands of German SMEs will receive a greenwashing cease and desist letter for the first time. The most important immediate measure: do not ignore it and do not panic. Instead, engage a specialist lawyer.

Specialist law firms — Experience in UWG (German Act Against Unfair Competition), advertising and trademark law, consumer protection law, EU compliance (SFDR, EU Taxonomy). Recommendation: lawyer search portals such as Anwalt.de with the filter "UWG/Advertising Law" — or recommendation via IHK (Chamber of Industry and Commerce).

Typical costs — Initial consultation 1-2 hours €200-400/h. Including assessment of the cease and desist letter. Modified cease and desist undertaking: lawyer’s fees €800-2,500. Contractual penalty in case of recurrence €5,000-25,000. Full defence (court proceedings): lawyer’s fees €3,500-15,000. Value in dispute typically €25,000-100,000. Success rate for defendants 8-15 %.

Strategy options — Option 1 (90 % of cases): Modified cease and desist undertaking. Negotiate the amount of the contractual penalty (standard proposal is often too high). Option 2: Full defence via negative declaratory action, rarely successful. Option 3: Doing nothing — NOT recommended.

What you should definitely NOT do: ignore the cease and desist letter (deadlines!), sign a cease and desist undertaking without qualification, remove advertising immediately without legal consultation, write directly to Verbraucherzentrale (German Consumer Advice Centre).

Prevention is 50× cheaper: An Empcora audit for €49 prevents legal costs and contractual penalties in the five-figure range.