You got a letter about the BFSG — a German accessibility response playbook

Two different letters that cite the same law

If something citing the Barrierefreiheitsstärkungsgesetz (BFSG) has landed in your inbox, the first job is not drafting a response — it is working out which of two genuinely different things you are holding. Both can mention the same law. The sender, the legal basis, and the right response are not remotely the same.

• A notice from the Marktüberwachungsstelle der Länder für die Barrierefreiheit (MLBF) — the 16 German states’ joint market-surveillance body.
• A private Abmahnung — a warning letter from a law firm acting for a claimed competitor, brought under unfair-competition law rather than by any public authority.

Confusing the two leads to the wrong response either way: treating a private cost demand as a government enforcement action, or dismissing an actual regulator’s notice as junk mail.

If it’s the MLBF

The MLBF is based in Magdeburg and became operational after the states’ treaty took effect on 26 September 2025. It adopted a risk-based surveillance strategy on 29 January 2026, combining active and automated checks with reactive complaint handling. Worth stating plainly: the MLBF has published no activity numbers — no counts of checks, complaints, or actions taken — so any specific figure you hear about German enforcement volume did not come from the authority itself.

If the letter is genuinely from the MLBF, the statutory penalty schedule sits in BFSG §37, and it is not one number:

• Up to €100,000 for the most serious categories (§37(1) nos. 1, 7, 8, 9, 10 — placing a non-conforming product or service on the market, or improper CE marking).
• Up to €10,000 for the other listed violations, mostly information and documentation failures.

Both are statutory maximums for an Ordnungswidrigkeit, not fines anyone has actually paid — we found no published record of a fine imposed under §37.

If it’s a private Abmahnung

Since around August 2025, a wave of Abmahnungen has gone out to small e-commerce operators over claimed BFSG breaches — sent by a law firm acting for a claimed competitor, demanding roughly €600 each. A regional trade association publicly flagged the wave on 20 August 2025. The critical fact here is not the amount; it is that the legal basis is genuinely unsettled. No German court has yet ruled on whether the BFSG counts as a Marktverhaltensregel under UWG §3a — which is the premise the entire practice depends on. This is private enforcement under unfair-competition law (UWG / UKlaG), not a MLBF regulatory action, and it should not be treated as one.

That does not make it safe to ignore. A UWG claim, if actually pursued to court, carries real cost exposure regardless of how the underlying accessibility question is eventually settled — it just means the letter is a private legal claim from a law firm, not a state supervisory finding, and your response should be built around that distinction rather than around the BFSG citation alone.

Telling them apart, in practice

The clearest signal is the sender: a public authority (the MLBF, or a state-level surveillance body acting on its behalf) versus a private law firm writing for a named or claimed competitor. The second signal is what’s being asked for: a regulator’s notice is about compliance and documentation; a private Abmahnung is typically about a payment and, commonly, a signed declaration. If you are not certain which you have, that uncertainty is itself a reason to get a second read on the letter before responding to either demand.

The clock

Neither track has a universal published response window in the public record. Read the specific letter for whatever date it names. Abmahnungen conventionally set a short deadline for a response; do not assume you must comply by it without review, and do not assume you can ignore it either, particularly given the unresolved legal question behind it.

What to send back

For an MLBF notice, the documentation that actually answers a market-surveillance inquiry is: what was tested, against which EN 301 549 revision (v3.2.1 / WCAG 2.1 AA, or the v4.1.0 final draft / WCAG 2.2 AA), on which surfaces, when, what was found, and a remediation plan with dates.

For a private Abmahnung, the same underlying evidence base — a real conformance report and a dated remediation plan — is what lets you and your counsel respond to the underlying claim from a position of fact rather than uncertainty, whichever way you decide to respond to the demand itself. If your business is a microenterprise — fewer than 10 people and turnover or balance-sheet total under €2 million — providing services, check the EAA’s exemption for that category before anything else; it is directly relevant given that the reported Abmahnung wave has specifically targeted small e-commerce operators.

What not to do

• Do not assume a private Abmahnung is a government enforcement action, or the reverse — the response, and who you should involve, differs completely.
• Do not pay a demand or sign a declaration without your own read of exactly what is being claimed, and legal advice given the unsettled basis of the UWG theory involved.
• Do not claim conformity you cannot evidence, to either sender.
• Do not ignore either letter on the assumption that no German court ruling exists yet — that cuts both ways, and it is not the same as a ruling in your favor.

Where an EN 301 549 report fits

Whichever letter you are holding, a chapter-by-chapter EN 301 549 conformance report against a named revision, plus a dated remediation plan, is the documentation that lets you respond from evidence rather than guesswork — to a regulator asking what you tested, or to counsel assessing exposure on a private claim. See how we help, check the wider enforcement record across EU supervisory authorities, or get in touch if you want to talk through which letter you have and what a response should contain.

This article is informational only, not legal advice; how to respond to a specific MLBF notice or Abmahnung is a determination for your organization and, particularly for the latter, your own counsel.