Al­f­red Dittrich
The ar­ti­cle deals with questi­ons of ju­di­ci­al pro­tec­tion re­la­ting to the Eu­ro­pean Com­mis­si­on no­ti­ce on le­ni­en­cy, which plays an im­portant ro­le in un­co­ver­ing and fi­ning car­tels. The first part ex­plo­res ge­ne­ral questi­ons of ju­di­ci­al pro­tec­tion con­cerning the va­li­di­ty and the ap­p­li­ca­ti­on of the no­ti­ce on le­ni­en­cy. The se­cond part deals with le­gal questi­ons con­cerning the trans­fer or...

Ul­rich Soltész, Brus­sels
In re­cent ye­ars the con­for­mi­ty of the EU an­ti­trust fi­ning sy­stem with the prin­ciple of due pro­cess has be­en in­cre­a­sin­gly cal­led in­to questi­on. Even though the re­cent ECHR judgment in Me­na­ri­ni seems to lend so­me sup­port to the ad­vo­ca­tes of the pre­sent sy­stem, the ca­se law on due pro­cess con­ti­nue to dis­play in­con­si­sten­cies. In par­ti­cu­lar, the va­rious judgments on ru­le...

Alex­an­der Karst, München
The Eu­ro­pean Court of Ju­sti­ce (ECJ) poin­ted out in its de­ci­si­ons "Ak­zo No­bel" and "Ge­ne­ral Quími­ca" that a par­ent com­pa­ny is lia­ble for the an­ti-com­pe­ti­ti­ve be­ha­viour of its daugh­ter com­pa­ny pro­vi­ded that the daugh­ter com­pa­ny is a whol­ly-ow­ned sub­si­dia­ry of the par­ent com­pa­ny. In this spe­ci­fic ca­se of a 100% share­hol­ding in the daugh­ter com­pa­ny, the par­ent com­pa­ny can ex­er­cise a de­ci­si­ve in­flu­ence...

St­ein / Fri­ton / Hut­ten­lauch, Ber­lin
The ar­ti­cle deals with the links bet­ween an­ti­trust law and pu­blic pro­cu­re­ment law, in par­ti­cu­lar with re­spect to com­p­li­an­ce and self-clea­ning. An­ti­trust in­frin­ge­ments may ju­sti­fy an ex­clu­si­on from par­ti­ci­pa­ti­on in a pu­blic con­tract award pro­ce­du­re in Ger­ma­ny, but the­re is still de­ba­te on the de­tail. A re­cent de­ci­si­on by the Ver­ga­be­kam­mer Nie­der­sach­sen of 24 March 2011 sup­ports the pos­si­bi­li­ty of a dis­cre­tio­na­ry ex­clu­si­on of an un­der­ta­king on grounds of

Car­sten Krüger, Brus­sels/Kai­sers­lau­tern
Car­tel mem­bers are joint­ly and se­ver­al­ly lia­ble for the da­ma­ge cau­sed by their il­le­gal prac­tices un­der the ge­ne­ral prin­ci­ples of tort law. A vic­tim of the in­frin­ge­ment may the­re­fo­re seek the ent­i­re da­ma­ge from any one or any com­bi­na­ti­on of the car­te­lists who cont­ri­bu­ted to the in­ju­ry. Thus, the questi­on of cont­ri­bu­ti­on among the tort­fea­sors ari­ses, es­pe­cial­ly...

Hans-Jürger Rup­pelt, Ber­lin
In re­cent ye­ars, the Fe­deral Car­tel Of­fice had to as­sess se­veral mer­gers in the food re­tail in­du­stry. Th­ree of the­se ca­ses ha­ve on­ly be­en clea­red on the ba­sis of re­me­di­es sin­ce the re­gu­la­tor ca­me to the con­clu­si­on that on a coup­le of re­le­vant mar­kets do­mi­nant po­si­ti­ons would be crea­ted or streng­the­ned. The­se de­ci­si­ons rai­se the questi­on of ade­qua­te de­fi­ni­ti­ons of re­le­vant...

Ro­mi­na Pol­ley, Ham­burg / Sil­ke Heinz, Köln
The sett­le­ment pro­ce­du­res of the two aut­ho­ri­ties dif­fer in va­rious as­pects in prac­tice, in­ter alia be­cau­se of the dif­fe­rent le­gal and pro­ce­du­ral frame­works. Whi­le the Com­mis­si­on acts on the ba­sis of a spe­ci­fic and very de­tai­led re­gu­la­to­ry sett­le­ment packa­ge, in prac­tice the sub­stan­ce of a sett­le­ment is most­ly not ne­go­tia­ble, or on­ly to a li­mi­t­ed extent....

Dirk Schro­eder, Co­lo­gne
Un­li­ke in the ca­se of the EU and na­tio­nal ru­les dea­ling with agree­ments re­stric­ting com­pe­ti­ti­on or with the abu­se of a do­mi­nant po­si­ti­on, so far the­re has be­en no har­mo­niza­t­i­on of Eu­ro­pean mer­ger con­trol law and the va­rious mer­ger con­trol laws of the Mem­ber Sta­tes. No­ta­b­ly, the­re are si­gni­fi­cant dif­fe­ren­ces bet­ween the EU Mer­ger Re­gu­la­ti­on and Ger­man mer­ger con­trol law, which ha­ve an im­pact in prac­tice....

Mein­rad Dre­her / Jens Hoff­mann, Mainz
The ar­ti­cle dis­cus­ses the com­pa­ti­bi­li­ty of in­for­ma­ti­on ex­ch­an­ges bet­ween com­pe­ti­tors with Com­pe­ti­ti­on Law. It starts with an over­view of the la­test de­ci­si­on prac­tice of the courts and com­pe­ti­ti­on aut­ho­ri­ties. A clo­ser look is gi­ven to the high fi­nes im­po­sed by the Ger­man Fe­deral Car­tel Of­fice (Bun­des­kar­tell­amt) in 2008 and in 2011 as well as to the new Com­mis­si­on's...

Wolf­gang Kirch­hoff, Karls­ru­he
On the ba­sis of fi­ve de­ci­si­ons, this ar­ti­cle pro­vi­des an over­view of the re­cent ca­se law by the BGH on the abu­se of do­mi­nan­ce and the de­fi­ni­ti­on of the re­le­vant mar­ket. The BGH re­jec­ted to re­view an ap­peal con­cerning the de­fi­ni­ti­on of a se­pa­ra­te mar­ket for a lo­cal chee­se spe­cial­ty. With re­gard to a con­cen­tra­ti­on of hea­ring aid ma­nu­fac­tu­rers, the BGH de­fi­ned two se­pa­ra­te...