Andre­as Hahn, Stutt­gart
Alt­hough Ger­man mer­ger con­trol law pro­vi­des that con­cen­tra­ti­ons that fall in­to the ju­ris­dic­tion of the Ger­man Fe­deral Car­tel Of­fice (FCO) shall be no­ti­fied pri­or to their im­ple­men­ta­ti­on it can hap­pen that a tran­sac­tion is put in­to ef­fect wi­thout no­ti­fi­ca­ti­on and cle­aran­ce by the FCO. The ar­ti­cle ana­ly­ses whe­ther the par­ties to such a con­cen­tra­ti­on ha­ve the pos­si­bi­li­ty to...

Ralf Ge­org Sch­mitt, Frank­furt am Main
Cli­en­te­le pro­tec­tion clau­ses may rai­se com­pe­ti­ti­on law con­cerns, par­ti­cu­lar­ly if sti­pu­la­ted in ex­ch­an­ge con­tracts bet­ween com­pe­ti­tors. Ac­cor­ding to the pre­vious ca­se law of the Ger­man Fe­deral Court of Ju­sti­ce (BGH) such clau­ses are va­lid if they are sup­por­ted by a "le­gi­ti­ma­te in­te­rest" (an­zu­er­ken­nen­des In­ter­es­se). The amend­ment of the Ger­man Act on Res­traints...

Di­mi­tri­os-Pa­na­gio­tis Tz­akas / Ari­sti­des Kal­afa­tis
The re­le­van­ce of the Greek An­ti­trust Law in­crea­ses si­gni­fi­cant­ly not on­ly for the na­tio­nal, but al­so for the for­eign un­der­ta­kings due to the ra­pid de­ve­lop­ment of the Sou­thern Eu­ro­pean mar­ket. The un­der­ly­ing goal of the fol­lo­wing es­say is to pro­vi­de a ba­lan­ced over­view of its struc­tu­re, func­tion and spe­cial fea­tures. An il­lu­stra­ti­on of the fun­da­men­tal...

Da­ni­el J. Zim­mer / Tho­mas Paul, Bonn
The new EC-Com­mis­si­on's le­ni­en­cy-no­ti­ce has ad­dres­sed ma­ny con­tro­ver­si­al issu­es. Still, the scope of an im­mu­ni­ty from fi­nes for af­fi­lia­ted groups re­mains un­cle­ar: Does an ent­i­re group be­ne­fit from the ex­emp­ti­on - or on­ly the "whist­le blo­wing" cor­po­ra­ti­on? What about di­ve­sted or ac­qui­red sub­si­dia­ries? And what is the le­gal sta­tus for joint­ly con­trol­led joint ven­tures in ca­se of a le­ni­en­cy ap­p­li­ca­ti­on?...

Chri­sti­an Ko­enig / Marg­ret Schell­berg / Kri­sti­na Schrei­ber, Bonn
With amen­ding the rail­way right in Ger­ma­ny a qua­li­ta­tive­ly new sta­ge of the ad­just­ment of the rail­way or­der is ac­com­plis­hed. Be­si­de the re­gu­la­ti­on of the ac­cess to the net­works and of the fees in the rail­way sec­tor, §§ 9, 9a AEG esta­blish a de­tai­led un­bund­ling re­gime.
The in­for­ma­ti­ve un­bund­ling was not spe­ci­fi­cal­ly stan­dar­di­zed....

Bo­ris Ka­sten, Frank­furt am Main
Ver­ti­cal (mi­ni­mum) resa­le pri­ce main­ten­an­ce (RPM) can si­gni­fi­cant­ly sti­mu­la­te com­pe­ti­ti­on. Le­gal re­gimes on both si­des of the At­lan­tic ha­ve shown dif­fe­rent de­grees of wil­ling­ness to in­ter­na­li­ze this fin­ding. The U.S. Su­pre­me Court re­cent­ly ack­now­led­ged the po­ten­ti­al be­ne­fits of RPM in its Lee­gin opi­ni­on, which over­tur­ned ne­ar­ly cen­tu­ry-old pre­ce­dent that held RPM...

Dr. Bern­hard Heit­zer, Pre­si­dent of the Bun­des­kar­tell­amt
The ar­ti­cle high­lights the cur­rent are­as of dis­cus­sion sur­roun­ding Ger­man com­pe­ti­ti­on po­li­cy from the per­spec­tive of the Bun­des­kar­tell­amt. Ba­sed on the "mo­re eco­no­mic ap­proach" de­ba­te it il­lu­stra­tes the en­vi­sa­ged amend­ments to the Ger­man Com­pe­ti­ti­on Act in the form of the "pri­ce abu­se amend­ment". In the en­er­gy sec­tor abu­se con­trol ex­er­cised...

Ser­ge Du­ran­de / Ma­nu­el Kel­ler­bau­er, Brüssel
The Hea­ring Of­fi­cers' field of ac­tivi­ty ex­tends well beyond gua­ran­te­eing the ef­fec­tive ex­er­cise of the right to be heard in EC mer­ger and an­ti­trust pro­cee­dings. They ha­ve de­ci­si­on-ma­king powers to en­su­re a fair ad­mi­ni­stra­ti­ve pro­cess for ad­dres­ses of a fi­nal de­ci­si­on and other par­ties as­so­cia­ted with the pro­cee­dings, in­clu­ding tho­se re­la­ting to ac­cess...

Wolf­gang De­sela­ers / Eck­art Wa­gner / In­go Lie­bach, Brüssel
With its de­ci­si­on in the So­da-Club ca­se in Au­gust 2006 the Fe­deral Court of Ju­sti­ce ga­ve the first preli­mi­na­ry ru­ling in an ap­peal on points of law. Al­so re­gar­ding the me­rits of the ca­se, the Fe­deral Court of Ju­sti­ce en­t­e­red new ter­ri­to­ry. It held that ap­peals against de­ci­si­ons ba­sed on Ar­ti­cle 82 EG ha­ve sus­pen­si­ve ef­fect. By co­m­ing to...

Jan-Ste­phan Rit­ter / Alex­an­der Lücke, Ber­lin
In April 2007 the Ger­man Ca­bi­net ad­op­ted a draft amend­ment of the Act against Res­traints of Com­pe­ti­ti­on. With the new pro­vi­si­ons the Go­vern­ment aims at in­ten­si­fy­ing the com­bat against abu­si­ve pri­cing in the en­er­gy- and gro­ce­ries sec­tor. The new sec­tion 29, fo­cu­sed on the en­er­gy sec­tor, is sup­po­sed to en­han­ce the ef­fec­tiven­ess of pos­si­ble in­ter­ven­ti­ons...