A EUR 36,000 fine, EUR 37,803.50 including procedural costs — followed by insolvency proceedings. The case of Stuttgart influencer Hanadi Diab is not an outlier but the predictable escalation stage of a supervisory regime that has been tightening for years. This article sets out what exactly was sanctioned, which two legal regimes apply in parallel, and where the common hope of “move the company abroad and the problem disappears” holds — and where it does not.
What happened
The Landesanstalt für Kommunikation Baden-Württemberg (LFK), the state media authority for Baden-Württemberg, imposed a EUR 36,000 fine on a Stuttgart beauty and lifestyle influencer with more than 760,000 Instagram followers. At issue were several paid collaborations in Instagram Stories between May and July 2025: some carried no advertising label at all, others were labelled but the label was barely perceptible because of the graphic design.
- 2020 & 2022
Earlier warnings from the LFK
The authority had already pointed out the disclosure obligations twice — so the later penalty range was no longer that of a first-time offence.
- May – July 2025
The sanctioned collaborations
Several paid partnerships in Instagram Stories with missing or barely perceptible disclosure.
- ZAK decision
Nationally coordinated ruling
The Commission for Licensing and Supervision (ZAK) took the decision; the LFK executed it as the competent state media authority.
- 3 July 2026
Insolvency proceedings opened
Stuttgart District Court opened insolvency proceedings over the influencer's assets.
- 28 July 2026
LFK goes public with the case
The penalty notice is final and binding; total sum including procedural fees and expenses: EUR 37,803.50.
For scale: published fines by the German media authorities against creators had previously sat in the range of roughly EUR 9,000 to 12,500. The EUR 36,000 therefore is not a continuation but a marked escalation — and the statutory ceiling of EUR 500,000 per offence is nowhere near exhausted.
Two legal regimes, one single post
The most expensive misconception in influencer and content marketing is the assumption that there is one disclosure rule. In reality two independent regimes run in parallel — with different actors, different triggers and different cost consequences:
| Media law (MStV) | Unfair competition law (UWG) | |
|---|---|---|
| Provision | § 22(1) sentence 1 MStV — advertising must be clearly recognisable and clearly separated from other content | § 5a(4) UWG — concealing the commercial purpose |
| Who enforces | State media authority ex officio (§ 106 MStV), coordinated nationally via the ZAK | Competitors, the Wettbewerbszentrale, trade associations — on their own initiative |
| Sanction | Fine up to EUR 500,000 per offence (§ 115 MStV) | Warning-letter costs, cease-and-desist undertaking with contractual penalty, interim injunction |
| Burden of proof | Authority investigates | Commercial purpose is presumed (§ 5a(4) sentence 3 UWG) — the creator must rebut it |
| Repeat offence | Increases the fine considerably | Triggers the contractual penalty — per violation, cumulative |
| Trigger | Own monitoring, complaints, screening | A single attentive competitor is enough |
The reversed burden of proof in § 5a(4) sentence 3 UWG is the practically underestimated point: the commercial purpose is presumed. Anyone who does not label a post is initially under suspicion and must actively demonstrate that no consideration was received — not the other way round.
What disclosure actually requires
The guideline “Werbekennzeichnung bei Online-Medien” issued by the German media authorities (last updated in May 2025) describes a nationally uniform practice. Reduced to its core:
- Label at the start of the post, not at the end
- Readable without interaction — no "show more", no swipe, no click
- Sufficient contrast against background and moving image
- Unambiguous wording: "Werbung" or "Anzeige"
- In the language of the post — German content, German label
- Also for free products, trips and discount codes
- Baking the label into story graphics where the design swallows it
- Relying on platform tools alone ("Paid partnership")
- A hashtag cloud at the end of the caption with #ad buried inside
- "sponsored by", "powered by", "in friendly collaboration"
The quoted core sentence from LFK president Wolfgang Kreißig sums up the standard: advertising must not require a second look to be recognisable — and creators with large reach carry a particular responsibility for transparency. The accusation here was expressly not only the missing label but also its visual inconspicuousness.
And what about a foreign structure?
The obvious reflex: move the company out of Germany and the state media authority loses jurisdiction. The thought is not entirely wrong — supervisory jurisdiction does attach to the provider’s establishment, and the media authorities determine the competent authority by the federal state in which the provider is based. But the shortcut does not hold:
What genuinely changes the picture is not a letterbox address but relocating your centre of life and activity — with everything that follows from it in tax terms. That distinction matters enough that we work through it in a dedicated article: Georgian company, German authorities — what actually counts.
Until then, the unromantic but cheapest lesson from the case stands: correct disclosure costs nothing. It is not a competitive disadvantage, it requires no structure, no adviser and no relocation — just a clean label in the right place. The Diab case is therefore less a story about an overly harsh state than one about two ignored warnings from 2020 and 2022.
Frequently asked questions
FAQ
Is the Instagram "Paid partnership" tool sufficient as disclosure?
Not reliably. The German media authorities and the Wettbewerbszentrale treat platform-native labels as supplementary rather than sufficient — their prominence varies by view, device size and rendering. The recommended practice is an additional, self-applied label reading "Werbung" or "Anzeige" at the start of the post.
Do I have to disclose even if I was not paid in money?
Yes, whenever a benefit in kind was received: free products, trips, discount or affiliate codes all trigger the disclosure duty. Under § 5a(4) sentence 3 UWG the commercial purpose is additionally presumed — the burden of demonstrating that no consideration was involved sits with you.
How high can a fine go?
Up to EUR 500,000 per administrative offence under § 115 MStV. The EUR 36,000 in the Stuttgart case is therefore far from the ceiling — but it shows the direction of travel: previously published cases sat at roughly EUR 9,000 to 12,500.
Is a regulatory fine tax-deductible or insurable?
No. Fines are excluded from business-expense deduction under § 4(5) sentence 1 no. 8 EStG, and commercial liability insurance does not cover your own administrative offences. The sum has to come out of taxed private assets — which is why such amounts become existential.
Does a foreign company protect me from warning letters?
Not while you live in Germany and publish from here — the acting individual is then directly reachable. With a genuine foreign structure the picture differs: the market-effects principle of Art. 6 Rome II presupposes that the German market is specifically targeted, and under ECJ case law German-language content alone does not suffice for that. A German judgment is also barely enforceable against a company with no EU assets. Covered in detail in the article on Georgian structures.
This article is general information and does not constitute legal or tax advice. The account of the case is based on the LFK press release of 28 July 2026 and reporting by heise online. For assessing your own advertising and for questions of disclosure duties, please consult a lawyer specialising in media and competition law. As of July 2026, subject to changes in the legal situation.