Frank P. Mai­er-Ri­gaud, Pa­ris/Bonn
The ar­ti­cle dis­cus­ses the le­gal ba­sis for struc­tu­ral re­me­di­es un­der Eu­ro­pean Com­pe­ti­ti­on Law in light of the main­ly Ger­man cri­ti­cism of re­cent com­mit­ment de­ci­si­ons in the en­er­gy sec­tor and in par­ti­cu­lar the E.ON de­ci­si­ons of DG Com­pe­ti­ti­on. In par­ti­cu­lar the ar­ti­cle dis­cus­ses what "brin­ging an in­frin­ge­ment ef­fec­tive­ly to an end" as goal of any reme­dy im­plies and...

Tho­mas Kapp, Stutt­gart
The Lo­cal Court of Bonn has ta­ken a non-ap­pealable de­ci­si­on on Ja­nu­a­ry 18, 2012 in the af­ter­math of the fa­mous "Pflei­de­rer" ca­se of the Eu­ro­pean Court of Ju­sti­ce. The dis­pu­te about the ac­cess to the files of the Fe­deral Car­tel Of­fice in this ca­se has the­r­e­by co­me to an end. The Lo­cal Court of Bonn co­mes to a fi­nal con­clu­si­on which is si­mi­lar to the opi­ni­on of the AG Mazák...

Hans An­ton Hil­gers, Ber­lin
The ex­pla­na­to­ry me­mo­ran­dum to the draft bill of the 8th Amend­ment of the Act Against Res­traints on Com­pe­ti­ti­on (GWB) ad­dres­ses the com­pe­ti­ti­ve con­di­ti­ons in the fu­el mar­ket in Ger­ma­ny and ex­press­ly re­fers to the in­ve­sti­ga­ti­on of the fu­el sec­tor by the Ger­man Fe­deral Car­tel Of­fice (Bun­des­kar­tell­amt). One of the key fin­dings of this in­ve­sti­ga­ti­on is the Bun­des­kar­tell­amt's...

Jürgen Kühnen, Düssel­dorf
The 8th Amend­ment of the Act against Res­traints on Com­pe­ti­ti­on (GWB) in­tends to fur­ther ad­apt the Ger­man mer­ger con­trol re­gime to the Eu­ro­pean le­gal frame­work and to mo­ve from a mar­ket struc­tu­re ana­ly­sis to an ef­fects-ba­sed com­pe­ti­ti­on as­sess­ment. De­ci­si­ve cri­te­ri­on for a pro­hi­bi­ti­on would no lon­ger be the crea­ti­on or streng­the­ning of a do­mi­nant po­si­ti­on, but a si­gni­fi­cant...

Da­ni­el Dohrn / Mat­ti Mey­er, Köln
The ar­ti­cle deals with the Fe­deral Car­tel Of­fice's (FCO) af­fir­ma­ti­on that "fu­ture" po­ten­ti­al com­pe­ti­ti­on can be ta­ken as a ba­sis for a (pro­hi­bi­ti­on) de­ci­si­on, first con­tai­ned in its (press) mer­ger con­trol de­ci­si­on "NPG/Det­jen" da­ted 21. 4. 2009. To the extent evi­dent, this as­pect of the de­ci­si­on had not be­en ac­ted on to date. The FCO's pro­hi­bi­ti­on de­ci­si­on ba­sed...

Kor­ne­li­us Klein­lein / Da­ni­el Schu­bert, Ber­lin
One of the co­re issu­es in fol­low-on ac­tions is the pas­sing-on de­fence, i.e. whe­ther the par­ti­ci­pant of a pri­ce-fi­xing car­tel can in­vo­ke that the di­rect purcha­ser pas­sed on the over­char­ge to in­di­rect purcha­sers down­stream in the chain of dis­tri­bu­ti­on. In a ru­ling of 28 Ju­ne 2011, the BGH ad­mit­ted this de­fence in prin­ciple. The ar­ti­cle ex­ami­nes whe­ther...

An­ne C. Weg­ner / So­phie Ober­ham­mer, Düssel­dorf
The Fe­deral High Court (BGH) re­jec­ted a do­mi­nan­ce ba­sed claim of an in­de­pen­dent work­shop for ac­cess to MAN's re­pai­rer net­work. The BGH ap­p­lied a new mar­ket de­fi­ni­ti­on which di­ver­ges from the mar­ket de­fi­ni­ti­on used by the EU Com­mis­si­on. The new mar­ket de­fi­ni­ti­on will lead to mar­ket sha­res be­low 30% and be­low do­mi­nan­ce for all ve­hi­cle ma­nu­fac­tu­rers -...

Axel Gu­ter­muth, Brus­sels
The ar­ti­cle ex­plains the re­vi­sed EU Block Ex­emp­ti­on Re­gu­la­ti­on for re­se­arch and de­ve­lop­ment agree­ments (Re­gu­la­ti­on No 1217/2010) that en­t­e­red in­to force on 1 Ja­nu­a­ry 2011. The re­vi­sed Re­gu­la­ti­on is re­le­vant for the com­pe­ti­ti­on law as­sess­ment of agree­ments bet­ween un­der­ta­kings pro­vi­ding for co­ope­ra­ti­on in re­se­arch and de­ve­lop­ment (R&D) and the com­mer­cia­liza­t­i­on of R&D...

Da­ni­el von Bre­vern, Düssel­dorf
It is ge­ne­ral­ly as­su­med that the crea­ti­on of a joint ven­ture re­qui­res a no­ti­fi­ca­ti­on to the Eu­ro­pean Com­mis­si­on on­ly if the joint ven­ture qua­li­fies as a "full-func­tion joint ven­ture" wi­t­hin the mea­ning of Ar­ti­cle 3(4) Re­gu­la­ti­on 139/2004. Ho­we­ver, the Eu­ro­pean Com­mis­si­on has ad­op­ted a dif­fe­rent ap­proach un­der its "Con­so­li­da­ted Ju­ris­dic­tio­nal No­ti­ce". Ac­cor­ding to the no­ti­ce, the full-func­tio­na­li­ty con­di­ti­on does not ap­p­ly to the ac­qui­si­ti­on of joint con­trol ove

Ro­man In­derst, Frank­furt a.M. / Ul­rich Schwal­be, Ho­hen­heim
This ar­ti­cle deals with the quan­ti­fi­ca­ti­on of car­tel da­mages. Da­mages that we­re in­flic­ted by a car­tel are cal­cu­la­ted with re­spect to a so-cal­led coun­ter­fac­tu­al. Ty­pi­cal­ly, this is do­ne by com­pa­ring the out­co­me un­der the car­tel with that in a mar­ket that is com­pa­ra­ble along key di­men­si­ons, but whe­re the mar­ket out­co­me was not di­s­tor­ted by...