Ul­rich Ste­fan Den­zel / Ma­xi­mi­li­an Her­mann, Stutt­gart
In its draft gui­de­li­nes re­la­ting to the as­sess­ment of ver­ti­cal and con­glo­me­ra­te mer­gers pu­blis­hed on Fe­bru­ary 13, 2007 the Eu­ro­pean Com­mis­si­on has sum­ma­ri­sed how it in­tends to as­sess non-ho­ri­zon­tal mer­gers in the fu­ture. Ge­ne­ral­ly, ver­ti­cal and con­glo­me­ra­te mer­gers are sub­ject to a less strin­gent re­gime than ho­ri­zon­tal mer­gers and are nor­mal­ly...

Kath­rin We­ster­mann, Ber­lin
It may be of con­siderable im­port­an­ce to com­pe­ti­ti­ors, sup­p­liers or cust­o­m­ers of the mer­ging un­der­ta­kings to par­ti­ci­pa­te in mer­ger con­trol pro­cee­dings of the Fe­deral Car­tel Of­fice. The aut­hor out­li­nes the re­qui­re­ments and pos­si­ble point in ti­me of the ad­mit­tan­ce of third par­ties to mer­ger con­trol pro­cee­dings, high­light­ing the cri­te­ria by which the Fe­deral Car­tel Of­fice...

Chri­stoph Scha­last / Sören Rößner, Frank­furt am Main
With its lea­ding de­ci­si­on in the pep­com ca­se the Fe­deral Court of Ju­sti­ce con­sider­ab­ly ex­ten­ded the rights of third par­ties to ta­ke le­gal ac­tion against the cle­aran­ce of a mer­ger by the car­tel aut­ho­ri­ty. The court held that any third par­ty who­se in­te­rests will be sub­stan­ti­al­ly, di­rect­ly and in­di­vi­dual­ly af­fec­ted by the con­se­quen­ces of a cer­tain...

Andre­as Klees / Se­ba­sti­an Max Hau­ser, Han­no­ver
The Eu­ro­pean Com­mis­si­on has re­cent­ly pu­blis­hed its fi­nal re­port on the en­er­gy sec­tor com­pe­ti­ti­on in­qui­ry (COM(2006) 851 fi­nal). As ex­pec­ted, a de­fla­ting con­clu­si­on has be­en drawn with re­gard to se­rious com­pe­ti­ti­on pro­blems. The Com­mis­si­on fur­ther on pur­su­es ful­ly ow­nership un­bund­led Trans­mis­si­on Sy­stem Ope­ra­tors as the most ef­fec­tive me­ans to en­su­re...

Andre­as Mundt, Bonn
In ap­p­li­ca­ti­on of its aut­ho­ri­sa­ti­on un­der Sec­tion 81 (7) ARC the Bun­des­kar­tell­amt has laid down ge­ne­ral gui­de­li­nes on the use of its dis­cre­tio­na­ry powers in set­ting the le­vel of fi­nes. The gui­de­li­nes ta­ke ac­count of the spe­cial cha­rac­te­ri­stics of the Ger­man law on car­tel ad­mi­ni­stra­ti­ve of­fen­ces whi­le at the sa­me ti­me crea­ting a le­vel play­ing field bet­ween the Bun­des­kar­tell­amt...

Wern­hard Möschel, Tübin­gen
Streng­the­ning pri­va­te en­force­ment of com­pe­ti­ti­on law is in­ter­na­tio­nal­ly en vogue. Cur­rent­ly its prac­tical si­gni­fi­can­ce is li­mi­t­ed to the USA. That is due to pe­cu­li­a­ri­ties of the le­gal sy­stem the­re. Outs­ide the USA they are com­mon­ly not de­emed de­si­ra­ble. The aut­hor pro­vi­des a tho­rough con­side­ra­ti­on of the re­spec­tive ad­van­ta­ges and di­sad­van­ta­ges of pri­va­te and pu­blic en­force­ment....

Fe­lix En­gel­sing, Bonn
The Com­mis­si­on has used its ex­ten­si­ve dis­cre­tio­na­ry powers un­der Ar­ti­cle 23(2/3) of Re­gu­la­ti­on No 1/2003 re­gar­ding the set­ting of fi­nes by ad­op­ting Gui­de­li­nes on the me­thod of set­ting fi­nes. Alt­hough the ECJ de­cla­red the pre­vious Gui­de­li­nes da­ting from 1998 to be com­pa­ti­ble with pri­ma­ry Com­mu­ni­ty law, they ha­ve be­en cri­ti­cised for lacking trans­pa­ren­cy and pre­dic­ta­bi­li­ty in...

Tor­sten Körber, Je­na
The EC Mer­ger Re­gu­la­ti­on is ba­sed on a cle­ar di­vi­si­on of powers among the Eu­ro­pean Com­mis­si­on and the Mem­ber Sta­tes. Af­ter the re­vi­si­on of the tur­no­ver thres­holds un­der Ar­ti­cle 1 had fai­led, the Com­mis­si­on con­cen­tra­ted on the sy­stem of ca­se re­fer­ral when draf­ting the new ECMR 139/2004. New ca­se re­fer­ral ru­les we­re in­tro­du­ced un­der Ar­ti­cle 4 (4) and (5) en­ab­ling the par­ties to the mer­ger tran­sac­tion...

Se­ba­sti­an Has­lin­ger, Bonn
This ar­ti­cle dis­cus­ses the con­sti­tu­tio­na­li­ty of ow­nership un­bund­ling of elec­tri­ci­ty sup­p­ly net­works and its com­p­li­an­ce with Ar­ti­cle 12 and Ar­ti­cle 14 of the Ger­man Con­sti­tu­ti­on (Grund­ge­setz, "GG"). To date, this questi­on has not be­en suf­fi­ci­ent­ly ad­dres­sed by le­gal scho­lar­ship. It has me­rely be­en no­ted that issu­es with re­gard to con­sti­tu­tio­nal rights may ari­se. It has not be­en as­ses­sed, howe­ver, if...

Marc Bun­gen­berg, München/Je­na
The ar­ti­cle fo­cus­ses on the de­ve­lop­ment of the ju­ris­pru­dence of the ECJ, the Ger­man Fe­deral Court as well as the re­gio­nal courts of ap­peals du­ring the se­cond half of 2006 and Ja­nu­a­ry 2007 in the field of pu­blic pro­cu­re­ment. Ne­ar­ly all de­ci­si­ons stress the broad scope of ap­p­li­ca­ti­on as well as the strict In­ter­pre­ta­ti­on of re­qui­re­ments pro­ce­du­ral pro­cu­re­ment law puts...