Horst Satz­ky, Frank­furt a.M. / Brüssel
The Fe­deral Go­vern­ment con­siders a re­gu­la­ti­on on the di­ve­sti­tu­re of mar­ket- do­mi­na­ting un­der­ta­kings. Such re­gu­la­ti­on is sup­po­sed to be in­tro­du­ced as a new in­stru­ment in the Act against Res­trains of Com­pe­ti­ti­on. Un­der pre­sent law, di­ve­sti­tu­re is on­ly pos­si­ble in a si­tua­ti­on whe­re a mer­ger which has be­en im­ple­men­ted in vio­la­ti­on of the ban on com­ple­ti­on is to...

Ste­phan Bart­hel­mess / Ni­co­las Gauss, Brüssel
The ar­ti­cle dis­cus­ses an­ti­trust as­pects of the li­cen­sing of stan­dard-es­sen­ti­al pa­tents un­der Ar­ti­cle 101 TFEU. It high­lights the di­stinc­tion in this re­gard bet­ween stan­dards ba­sed on tech­no­lo­gy de­ve­l­o­ped by in­di­vi­du­al mar­ket par­ti­ci­pants that has emer­ged as a de fac­to stan­dard in the mar­ket place, and stan­dards ad­op­ted in in­du­stry-wi­de stan­dar­diza­t­i­on...

Jürgen Kühnen, Düssel­dorf
The ar­ti­cle dis­cus­ses which form of ad­mi­ni­stra­ti­ve ap­peal should be used in ca­se the Bun­des­netz­agen­tur de­ter­mi­nes fol­lo­wing the no­ti­ce of the ope­ra­tor of a su­pra-re­gio­nal na­tu­ral gas dis­tri­bu­ti­on net­work pur­suant to Sec­tion (3) 1st sen­tence GasNEV that the dis­tri­bu­ti­on net­work is not pre­do­mi­nant­ly ex­po­sed to com­pe­ti­ti­on and re­qui­res such ope­ra­tor to file an ap­p­li­ca­ti­on...

Fa­bi­an Stancke, Ham­burg
The Ger­man Fe­deral Court of Ju­sti­ce (Bun­des­ge­richts­hof) re­cent­ly issued a de­ci­si­on that re­sults in a ma­jor set­back for the pro­tec­tion of le­gal rights of third par­ties af­fec­ted by de­ci­si­ons of Ger­man an­ti­trust aut­ho­ri­ties. Ac­cor­ding to this de­ci­si­on, ap­p­li­ca­ti­ons of third par­ties for ad­mis­si­on to the ad­mi­ni­stra­ti­ve pro­ce­du­re (Bei­ladung) be­fo­re the An­ti­trust Aut­ho­ri­ty, which...

Tho­mas Kapp / An­ke Schu­ma­cher, Stutt­gart/Ber­lin
In prac­tice, the­re is of­ten a need for non-com­pe­te clau­ses for share­hol­ders. In this con­text of­ten the questi­on ari­ses whe­ther such non-com­pe­te clau­ses com­ply with the pro­vi­si­ons of com­pe­ti­ti­on law. Pur­suant to the ju­ris­pru­dence of the Ger­man Hig­her Re­gio­nal Courts (OLG), a non-com­pe­te clau­se can be agreed upon on­ly for ma­jo­ri­ty share­hol­ders. In Ju­ne...

Burk­hard Hess, Hei­del­berg
Collec­tive re­dress is on the cur­rent agen­da of Eu­ro­pean le­gis­la­ti­on. The EU Com­mis­si­on is pre­pa­ring se­veral in­stru­ments re­la­ting to con­su­mer pro­tec­tion and to EU car­tel law. In 2009, an un­of­fi­ci­al draft pro­po­sal for a di­rec­tive on da­ma­ge claims in car­tel mat­ters cir­cu­la­ted in Brus­sels. The 1st Bar­ro­so Com­mis­si­on, howe­ver, has not en­dor­sed the draft; it is ne­ver­the­l­ess...

Baa­ke / Ku­ch­in­ke / Wey, Ber­lin/Il­men­au
The la­test health ca­re re­forms in Ger­ma­ny con­sider­ab­ly in­crea­sed the scope for com­pe­ti­ti­on in Ger­ma­ny's com­pul­so­ry health ca­re sy­stem. He­alth in­suran­ces can now ne­go­tia­te bi­la­te­r­al­ly con­tracts with ser­vice pro­vi­ders as well as so-cal­led reba­te con­tracts with phar­maceu­ti­cal firms. In ad­di­ti­on, health in­suran­ces can of­fer a grea­ter va­rie­ty of con­trac­tu­al op­ti­ons (re­turns and al­lo­wan­ces) to their cust­o­m­ers....

Franz Jürgen Säcker, Ber­lin
The aut­hor ar­gues that the cri­te­ri­on for pro­hi­bit­ing mer­gers in Ger­man re­gu­la­ti­on (art. 37 pa­ra. 1 GWB) should be ad­ap­ted to EU mer­ger con­trol law (art. 2 pa­ra. 4 ECMR). In­te­gra­ting the SIEC-cri­te­ri­on ("si­gni­fi­cant im­pe­di­ments to ef­fec­tive com­pe­ti­ti­on") in­to na­tio­nal re­gu­la­ti­on would al­low Ger­man law to con­form with mo­dern com­pe­ti­ti­on theo­ry and be com­pa­ra­ble to Eu­ro­pean...

Chri­stoph Barth / Ste­fa­nie Bud­de, Bonn/Düssel­dorf
The cont­ri­bu­ti­on of the Fe­deral Car­tel Of­fice to the full hea­ring in car­tel pro­cee­dings is de­ci­si­ve for the in­ve­sti­ga­ti­on and le­gal clas­si­fi­ca­ti­on of the facts of a ca­se. The FCO has an im­men­se know­ledge due to the long ad­mi­ni­stra­ti­ve pro­cee­dings. Its cont­ri­bu­ti­on can the­re­fo­re lead to an im­portant shor­ta­ge of the du­ra­ti­on of the tri­al.
The ge­ne­ral de­part­ment of pu­blic pro­se­cu­ti­on is the com­pe­tent...

Rai­ner La­de­mann / Knut Lan­ge, Ham­burg / Bay­reuth
The to­pic of de­ter­mi­ning the re­le­vant pro­duct mar­ket re­pres­ents a ty­pi­cal in­ter­face bet­ween eco­no­mics and law. In light of the cur­rent dis­cus­sion about the sup­p­ly of small-sca­le con­su­mers with na­tu­ral gas, this ar­ti­cle ex­plains the im­port­an­ce of dia­lo­gue bet­ween the­se two di­sci­pli­nes in or­der to achie­ve con­vin­cing and with re­gard to ef­fec­tive pro­tec­tion...