OLG Hamm, Judgment of May 12, 2026 \u2013 I-4 UKl 3\/25 (not final)
The court ordered a cosmetic surgery clinic to cease and desist because its chatbot made false statements about the doctors.
The cosmetic clinic used an AI chatbot on its website that was intended to schedule appointments and answer questions. When asked, the bot replied that the two managing directors were \u201eFach\u00e4rzte f\u00fcr plastische und \u00e4sthetische Chirurgie“ or \u201eFach\u00e4rzte f\u00fcr \u00e4sthetische Medizin“ \u201c- titles that the two doctors in fact did not hold. Although the chatbot was shut down, the company did not issue a cease-and-desist declaration. The Higher Regional Court of Hamm therefore ordered the company to cease and desist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The court deemed the incorrect chatbot responses to be the company\u2019s own misleading commercial acts<\/strong> under \u00a7 5 Abs. 1, Abs. 2 Nr. 3 of the German Unfair Competition Act (UWG). This means that companies cannot rely solely on compliance with their duty of care under competition law when using AI chatbots. Although the ruling was issued under competition law, the underlying principle\u2014\u201cWhoever uses the bot is responsible for its output\u201d\u2014can be applied to other areas of law: <\/p>\n\n\n\n In practice, therefore, when using chatbots and AI assistants, it is advisable to implement close monitoring of the admissibility and accuracy of the output, both technically and organizationally. This is most likely to be achieved through a combination of several measures (e.g., topic filters, guardrails, escalation to human review, ongoing monitoring, and random checks). (Dr. Marian Klingebiel, UNVERZAGT Law)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" OLG Hamm, Judgment of May 12, 2026 \u2013 I-4 UKl 3\/25 (not final) The court ordered a cosmetic surgery clinic to cease<\/p>\n
The court clarified two points in this regard: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The ruling thus takes a clear position on the long-standing question of who is responsible for hallucinated or erroneous AI responses\u2014the company, the AI provider, or \u201cno one\u201d? According to the Higher Regional Court, at least in competition law: Whoever uses a chatbot on their site bears the risk of hallucinations<\/strong> themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Due to the particular significance of the issues regarding the attribution of false statements made by chatbots, the Senate has granted leave to appeal to the Federal Court of Justice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n