Main Developments in Competition Law and Policy 2025 – Germany

The following is a selection of some important developments in German competition law and policy in the year 2025.  It covers FCO enforcement cases under special rules for digital gatekeepers, abuse of dominance, merger control, antitrust (cartels, vertical price fixing and horizontal cooperation) the FCO’s sector inquiry into wholesale fuel market and the first ever use of the new competition tool, as well as damages litigation.

Special rules for digital companies – Section 19a ARC

This area played a significant role in the FCO’s activities in 2025: the FCO continued its enforcement against specific practices under Section 19a(2) ARC, with the designation of gatekeepers under the new rules mostly finalized by now (for an overview of all Section 19a ARC proceedings see here). 

Apple’s appeal against gatekeeper designation

On March 18, 2025, the Federal Court of Justice (“FCJ”), the sole appellate body regarding Section 19a cases, rejected Apple’s appeal against its designation as gatekeeper under Section 19a(1) ARC.  The FCJ referred to its previous ruling on Section 19a(1) ARC in the Amazon appeal (see for a blogpost on that ruling here): the FCO is not required to find that the company’s conduct already creates actual risks for or harms competition. It is sufficient to attest it has the strategic and competitive capabilities, creating an abstract risk).

On the condition of significant activities in multi-sided platform markets: as Amazon had argued that it was predominantly an online retailer, Apple argued it was predominantly a hardware seller, thus not meeting this condition for finding a paramount significance for competition across markets.  The FCJ rejected this point, considering Apple’s digital services as significant relevant activities.  It clarified that Section 19a(1) ARC does not restrict the notion of multi-sided platforms to transactions platforms, but also covers operating a platform that brings together different user groups for other types of interaction, creating network effects.  This includes so-called attention platforms and platforms enabling the technical interaction of user groups, e.g., operation systems.  The FCJ sided with Apple that the statutory criterion “access to competitively relevant data” requires that the company needs to have actual and legal possibilities to collect and use such data – a mere access potential is not sufficient.  Apple was not deemed to have access to user data that are only stored on the end user’s device or in an encrypted way in the cloud.  Nevertheless, the user data to which Apple has access (based on installing a user ID) were deemed sufficient to meet the criterion.  That Apple does not combine or track individuals’ user data across its services does not matter: the way it uses data in practice to which it has access is not relevant for Section 19a(1) ARC.

Proceedings against Apple’s ATTF

On February 13, 2025, the FCO sent Apple a statement of objections regarding its App Tracking Transparency Framework, which concerns user consent rules for app tracking, an important feature for online advertising.  The FCO took issue because Apple applies these rules in addition to existing user consent requirements applicable to personal data tracking, and more importantly, because Apple only applies these additional requirements to third-party apps, but not to its own.  The FCO found that this results in third-party apps having to display up to a maximum of double the amount of consent dialogue windows compared to Apple.  Accordingly, the FCO saw a risk of dark patterns to the advantage of Apple’s own apps/services (see press release here, as well as blog post here.)  On December 12, 2025, the FCO has started market testing commitments offered by Apple (see press release here).

Google Automotive Services/Google Maps

On April 9, 2025, the FCO terminated proceedings under Section 19a(2) ARC against Google with two commitment decisions.  Both cases were triggered by a complaint by TomTom (provider of navigation and maps content, software and services).  One case concerned Google’s Automotive Services (“GAS”), which enables the use of in-vehicle infotainment (“IVI”) systems and consist of Google Maps, Google Play and Google Assistant (see Google Automotive press release here and the decision here).  Google only allowed sourcing its services contained in GAS as a bundle.  In addition, Google had agreements with vehicle manufacturers that provided incentives to use Google services, including default settings and advertising revenue sharing conditional upon no services with comparable functions being installed in IVI systems.  The FCO found in its preliminary assessment that these practices met the conditions of abusive practices set out in Section 19a(2)ARC, including inter alia bundling and tying (Section 19a(2) s.1 no 3a and 3b ARC), which can apply even if the gatekeeper is not dominant in the relevant markets, so-called “envelopment”; and constituted measures resulting in exclusive pre-installation or integration of offers provided by the gatekeeper (Section 19a(2) s.1 no. 2a ARC).  The FCO also found that in the past Google refused interoperability of its services with third-party services or made it more difficult (Section 19a(2) s. 1 no 5 ARC).  The commitments relate to Google offering the relevant services also on a stand-alone basis, removing the contractual restrictions described above and creating the necessary conditions for interoperability, generally for a duration of eight years.

The parallel Google Maps proceedings concerned Google’s Map Platform (“GMP”) services and Google’s practice to contractually restrict the combined use of those services with third-party’s map services (see press release here and the decision here).  The FCO found that GMP services could not be displayed on third-party maps, nor could GMP and third-party map services be combined in in-vehicle-embedded systems.  A combination was also excluded for an application substantially similar to or re-recreating the features of another Google product or service.  In its preliminary assessment, the FCO considered these practices to constitute abusive tying (Section 19a(2) s.1 no 3b ARC) and a refusal of interoperability or making the latter more difficult (Section 19a(2) s. 1 no 5 ARC).  Google committed to remove these contractual restrictions, generally for a duration of ten years.

While the FCO only has jurisdiction over the territory of Germany, the commitments are de facto expected to have effects beyond that, because they apply to GAS in passenger cars that are or may in the future be registered in Germany.  These registration conditions are standardized across the EU, i.e. manufacturers typically apply them to every car to be registered in the EU.  The GMP commitments will cover all GMP license holders with a billing address in the EEA. 

The FCO stressed that both decisions were in line with Art. 1(6) s. 2(b) DMA, because the commitments either concern Google services not listed as Core Platform Services in the Commission’s decision to designate Alphabet as a DMA gatekeeper, or regarding Google Maps or Google Play, they represent further obligations compared with those currently applicable to Google under the DMA. 

Proceedings against Amazon’s price control mechanisms

On June 2, 2025, the FCO sent a statement of objections to Amazon that it considered the “price control mechanism” Amazon applied to offers by third-party dealers on its Marketplace as abusive practice under Section 19a(2) ARC (see press release here).  The FCO prohibited Amazon’s practice under Section 19a(2) ARC, as well as under traditional abuse of dominance rules (Art. 102 TFEU and Section 19 ARC) on February 5, 2026 (see press release here and a dedicated blogpost here).  The relevant conduct concerned Amazon intervening if it considers the pricing of products of third-party dealers offered on the platform as too high, removing the offers entirely or not displaying them in the shopping cart.

The press release does not mention the exact theory of harm or which practices listed in Section 19a(2) ARC would apply.  The FCO explains that Amazon has a hybrid role as platform operator and competitor of dealers, and that thus it can only interfere with their independent pricing in extraordinary circumstances, e.g., if they were excessively high.  The FCO also refers to the lack of transparent, objective criteria established by Amazon to act against dealers under the price control mechanism, meaning that dealers cannot know in advance under which conditions their offers may be removed or not appear in the shopping cart.  It also points out that the price caps set by Amazon may result in third party dealers being squeezed from the platform because they cannot meet the comparison prices, e.g., offered by online dealers on third-party platforms, often without shipment cost.  The S/O had triggered a huge reaction media echo, essentially asking why the FCO were to intervene to allow higher prices on the Marketplace.  With the press release on the decision the FCO now also provided a Q&As document (see here), in which it provides a more detailed explanation of Amazon’s mechanism, and explains that it also took into account the P2B-platform regulation in its assessment.  Overall, the published material hints at possible theories of harm, including disproportionality due to lack of transparency, objective criteria and process; foreclosure of competitors, circumvention of the prohibition of a wide price parity clause (as set out in a previous FCO case against Amazon) through unilateral conduct – but the FCO does not explicitly set these out, which leaves the assessment opaque.  The published decision will hopefully shed more light on these points.

The FCO also skimmed off economic benefits Amazon gained through its conduct in the amount of € 59 million, which is different form a fine.  This is the first time that the FCO has used the possibility to do engage in disgorgement.  The legal basis is Section 34 ARC (introduced in 2023), which provides a statutory presumption of the economic benefits amounting to at least 1% of domestic sales with related products.  Given that the infringement is still ongoing, the FCO may impose yet another disgorgement order. 

Abuse of dominance

Fornal illegality of Lufthansa decision

On August 20, 2025, the Düsseldorf Court of Appeals quashed the FCO’s 2022 abuse of dominance decision against Lufthansa regarding access to feeder flights, because of formal illegality (see the judgment (in German) here), which is quite unusual.  The FCO proceedings concerned Lufthansa’s termination of the provision of feeder flights to Condor (see previous blogpost on 2022 developments here). Lufthansa had appealed the FCO’s decision and filed for interim relief, which the Düsseldorf Court of Appeals granted in May 2024.  The 2025 ruling came in the main appeal proceedings.

The court found formal illegality, because the FCO’s proceedings raised partiality concerns: The FCO did not grant Lufthansa access to file into the original minutes of an online meeting between the case unit and the Federal Ministry of Economics, while a potential case allocation between the European Commission and the FCO was still open.  Instead, the FCO only granted access to a (later) slightly redacted and changed version of the minutes of the meeting.  The court found that this was sufficient to raise concerns of partiality to the outside, which is the relevant legal test – irrespective of whether the FCO was indeed partial.  The FCO has appealed to the FCJ.  The partiality issue underlines that the FCO is a truly independent competition agency and needs to be free from any actual and perceived governmental interference.

Vodafone/Vanatage Towers and 1&1

On April 11, 2025, the FCO sent a statement of objections to Vodafone Group and Vantage Tower because of delays in providing mobile antennae sites to 1&1, a mobile phone operator in Germany (see press release here).  Vantage Tower used to be Vodafone group’s antennae site operator; today Vodafone Group still has joint control over it.  Vantage Tower still provides sites to Vodafone, as well as to third parties, but the latter requires coordination with Vodafone if the same sites are concerned.  In 2021, Vantage Tower and 1&1 concluded an antennae site provision agreement, but the implementation was massively delayed.

The FCO has raised concerns that the delays may impede 1&1’s market entry as the 4^th mobile phone network operator in Germany and its competitiveness.  In the same period, Vodafone expanded its own network and upgraded many existing sites (including those included in the agreement with 1&1) to 5G.  In its preliminary assessment, the FCO views the conduct as abusive foreclosure of a competitor under German law (Sections 19, 20 ARC).  The FCO rejected an objective justification for the delays, at least to such a large extent.  It indicated that Vodafone’s interests were aligned with the delays to the detriment of a competitor, as the lack of sites also negatively affected 1&1 in the mobile frequency auctions. 

Based on press reports, in November 2025, Vodafone has filed preventive interim relief against the FCO taking an abuse decision against it with the Düsseldorf Court of Appeals, apparently claiming that the FCO lacked impartiality in carrying out the proceedings – presumably inspired by the decision in the Lufthansa case. 

Merger control

Merger control was a key area of the FCO’s activities in 2025.  Overall, the FCO dealt with approximately 900 filings in 2025, the same range as in 2024, with the vast majority cleared in phase I.  The agency has dealt with four phase II proceedings in 2025: one notification was withdrawn, one case was terminated because it was not notifiable, one was prohibited and one is ongoing (see list with current phase II proceedings here).

Phase II

Prohibition of acquisition of Vion slaughterhouses by Tönnies

On June 12, 2025, the FCO prohibited the planned acquisition of certain assets of Vion, including several slaughterhouses located in Germany, to Tönnies, a German company active in slaughtering of animals and meat processing, after Phase II-proceedings (see press release here and a presentation (in German) here). The case concerned the procurement of cattle and pigs for slaughter, slaughtering, meat cutting and sales of slaughter products in Germany.  The FCO defined the markets for procurement and slaughtering as regional within a catchment area of 200-300km, whereas meat processing and sales markets were considered as national in scope. 

The FCO found that the merger would create dominance in cattle slaughtering in regional markets in Southern Germany, i.e., the catchment areas around three slaughterhouses Tönnies would take over, with combined market shares above 40% (the statutory presumption of single dominance), with significantly lower shares of the remaining competitors.  The merger would also have strengthened Tönnies’ dominance in pig slaughtering in one regional market.  Moreover, the FCO referred to high barriers to entry in the relevant markets, the importance of economies of scale, Tönnies’ structural links with other players, and its vertical integration and financial power.  Commitments negotiations failed.  The FCO rejected Tönnies’ offer of divestitures and leases of some of its own sites to acquirers selected by Tönnies, inter alia because the acquirers would not have been independent from Tönnies.

Clearances Phase I

Acquisition of Block S of Lippendorf power station by EP group

On September 19, 2025, the FCO cleared the acquisition of one block of the Lippendorf electricity power station by EP group (“EP”) (see case summary here and a presentation (in German) here).  It is remarkable because the FCO accepted (for the first time) that economic efficiencies in the same market would outweigh any negative effects on competition.  Prior to the merger, EnBW and EP each owned an identical block of the power station.  The power station uses lignite from a nearby lignite open cast mine owned and operated by EP, from which EP supplied lignite to EnBW under a long-term supply agreement.

The FCO analyzed the merger’s effects in the market for the first-time sale of electricity in Germany, in which RWE was the market leader, while EP ranked second and EnBW third prior to the merger.  Due to the market’s special characteristics (high barriers to entry, electricity not being storable, and very inelastic demand), dominance can occur already well below the statutory presumption of 40% market share, and several electricity generators can have a single dominant position in parallel.  While EP met the indications for dominance in this sector, the FCO found that it could not reasonably predict the future market size development: it expected significant increase in electricity generation capacity via the construction of wind turbines, solar power stations and battery storage systems, but in parallel conventional capacity would be further decommissioned.

Against this background, the FCO rejected the creation or strengthening of dominance through the (small) increase in capacity for EP through the merger: the increase also translated into a decrease of market power for EnBW, which was a positive development.  In addition, the internalization of the lignite supply agreement caused by the merger – EP would not any longer supply an external company but only itself – would result in lower marginal costs for the electricity generation carried out in the sold power station block.  The FCO expected this to result in more frequent use of the block in the future and in lower electricity prices, comparing the scenario to the elimination of double marginalization in vertical mergers.  (In light of electricity’s product homogeneity prices are uniform for 15 minutes intervals at the wholesale level and are determined by the most expensive power station used.)  Unfortunately, the case summary does not elaborate on the evidentiary requirements to prove the efficiencies.  (Given that it was a Phase-I-clearance, there will be no decision published.)

Overall, the efficiencies seem due to rather unique conditions in the sector in this case and it remains to be seen whether they will play a bigger role in the FCO’s future merger practice, given that it was viewed as rather treating efficiencies as an offense in merger control in the past.  This case may nevertheless trigger more merging parties to try and argue an efficiencies defense in Germany.

Demant A/S/Kind

On November 19, 2025, the FCO cleared the acquisition of German Kind GmbH & Co. KG and of hearing aid manufacturer audifon GmbH & Co. KG, which belongs to the Kind Group, by Danish Demant A/S (Deman) (see press release here).  Kind ranked 3^rd in hearing aid retail outlets in Germany, and Demant 4^th, and the merger would create the largest domestic hearing aid retail chain.  The FCO defined regional markets along the catchment areas around the parties’ outlets (based on postcode-specific customer turnover across a grid based on the age structure of customers and the prevalence of hearing aid use in each age group, see case summary for details of the special methodology used here). The FCO reviewed 80 catchment areas in detail and found competitive concerns in 17. 

The parties withdrew their filing, sold three hearing aid outlets to independent third parties, thereby changing the scope of the merger and removing the FCO’s concerns in two of the 17 catchment areas, and re-notified the (adapted) transaction.  While the FCO still had concerns about 15 catchment areas, the total market size of these areas was below € 20 million in the previous year, i.e. the de minimis market exception (Section 36(1) no. 2 ARC) applied – meaning that the FCO could not prohibit the merger.  

Acquisitions of minority shareholdings

Several cases involved the acquisition of minority stakes below 25%, which may under certain circumstances still constitute a concentration under German merger control law (even absent joint control) as acquisition of a competitively significant influence (Section 37(1) no. 4 ARC).  The FCO cleared the acquisition of 6.5% by German soccer league (DFL) in the platform joint venture Dyn Media, a streaming platform focused on sports other than soccer on November 6, 2025 (see press release here).  This seems to be one of the lowest shareholdings that ever qualified for an acquisition of a competitively significant influence – in practice these cases typically involve the acquisition of at least 10%.  The press release does not elaborate on the reasons why the majority shareholder would likely consider DFL’s interests as if it had a 25% share – which is the test for this type of concentration. 

In contrast, on August 13, 2025, the FCO found that the acquisition of a minority stake in Techem by TPG was not notifiable, because it did not meet the test for an acquisition of a competitively significant influence (see press release here).  The FCO confirmed that typically, acquisitions of shareholdings below 25% are only notifiable in the presence of special circumstances.  The FCO did not find any here: TPG did not obtain any special rights, and a cooperation agreement between one of TPG’s portfolio companies competing with Techem had been terminated.  The press release does not mention the amount of the minority share.

In the Lufthansa/air Baltic case, the FCO cleared the acquisition of 10% of Lufthansa in air Baltic on June 30, 2025 (see press release here).  Lufthansa also obtained rights in the decision-making process of air Baltic, and the parties substantially expanded their existing wet-lease agreement, so that the FCO concluded it was an acquisition of a competitively significant influence.  The FCO expressed serious competitive concerns regarding several flight connections between Germany and the Baltic States, where the parties were close competitors.  However, based on the European Commission’s market definition (each flight connection as a separate market), the relevant connections fell under the de minimis markets exception (total domestic turnover of less than € 20 million in the previous year).  The FCO thus had to clear the transaction.  It warned the parties in the press release that they remain separate legal entities and are thus prohibited from concluding anti-competitive agreements and coordinate prices, which is quite unusual.

RTL2 and Warner Bros. Discovery joint venture

On August 4, 2025, the FCO cleared the creation of the joint venture to be active in joint marketing of its parents TV ads (see press release here).  In the past, the FCO had prohibited a few joint venture plans in the same area.  The FCO explained the difference now as follows: (i) the current transaction only involved relatively small players (RTL 2 is not a subsidiary of RTL), i.e., the deal would likely be pro-competitive, and (ii) the product markets have evolved: the FCO no longer views TV ads as a separate market, but part of a “big screen advertising market”, including TV ads, as well as the offers by Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney and, to a certain extent, also YouTube.  This is a significant development, as RTL and ProSieben were considered to form a duopoly in the previously relevant separate TV ads market in Germany for a long time (this was already provided as one of the reasons for prohibiting the then abandoned Axel Springer/ProSieben Sat.1 merger in 2006).  The FCO noted that RTL and ProSieben are still the leading players in the broader market, but that Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney, as well as as Youtube, were expanding.  While the FCO did not explicitly find that RTL and ProSieben do not form a duopoly any longer, the press release seems to point into that direction.

BioNTech/CureVac

The FCO cleared the takeover of CureVac by Biontech on October 14, 2025 (see press release here).  The transaction was notifiable under the transaction value threshold, which enables the FCO to review deals in which the target (at the time of the merger) generates little or no turnover but is acquired by a large company at a purchase price of more than 400 million euros (Section 35(1) no. 1a ARC).  Both companies are active in mRNA-based technologies that are best-known for COVID 19 vaccines, but only Biontech has one related product in the market (co-distributed with Pfizer), whereas CureVac has no active ingredient approved yet.  The mRNA-based technology also extends to other areas, notably oncology, where the FCO did not find any significant overlap in the parties’ drug research pipelines.  While Biontech has large number of research projects, including some well advanced, CureVac’s research pipeline only has a few candidates in preclinical or early clinical phases.  Moreover, the FCO did not find that competition in technology-based innovation would be restricted: next to the parties, several other players are active in the development of mRNA-technology, and there are other biotechnical processes available for the same medical purposes.  

First order to notify future mergers below general statutory thresholds

On November 24, 2025, for the first time the FCO used its power under Section 32(f)(2) ARC to order the Rethmann Group (“Rethmann”), parent of waste management company Remondis, to notify future mergers below the normal statutory thresholds for the next three years (see press release here), if they concern the collection of certain household waste and the processing of hollow glass, provided that the target has a turnover of at least € 100k in the relevant economic sectors.  (Section 32(f)(2) also requires that the target had a total domestic turnover of at least € 1 million.)  As condition for imposing such an obligation the FCO must have carried out a sector inquiry into the relevant sectors, finding “objectively verifiable indications that future concentrations could significantly impede effective competition in Germany in one or several sectors of the economy”. 

The FCO had indeed completed an inquiry into the two sectors concerned in 2023, concluding that Rethmann was the market leader both at national and regional level, with substantial market shares and a significant lead over competitors.  The FCO referred to Rehmann’s exceptional access to regional sales and procurement markets and financial strength.  The markets are characterized by high barriers to entry, with a consolidation trend also due to Rethmann having acquired several small players (below the normal filing thresholds).  The number of participants in waste collection tenders by municipalities or dual system for packaging recycling steadily declined.  Against this background, the FCO saw the risk that even the acquisition of a smaller competitors might further weaken competition in the long run.

Antitrust – Cartel enforcement

In 2025, the FCO imposed fines of overall € 10 million on companies and individuals (including for vertical price fixing) (see press release here).  This is a decrease of almost 50% compared to 2024.  The FCO carried out 10 dawn raids, including in cooperation with international competition agencies.  The FCO does not publish the number of companies that have applied for leniency any longer.  It reported that 600 hints were received through the anonymous whistleblower system and external reporting unit, without disclosing how many lead to any proceedings.  The FCO aims to render its cartel enforcement more effective and envisages the increased use of new IT-supported analysis to detect infringements – without, however, providing further details.

Horizontal Cartels

The FCO fined seven road repair companies in the overall amount of € 10.5 million on May 13, 2025 (see press release here).  The companies had engaged in two cartels in Eastern Germany regions from 2016-2019 and 2018/2019, respectively.  They allocated customers and were involved in bid rigging regarding road repair orders.  The latter also constitutes a criminal offense under German law, if public tenders are concerned.  The FCO therefore qualified the conduct as separate infringements: (i) as a cartel (basic agreement) and on top (ii) as a criminal offense in those individual instances that concerned public tenders – and in these scenarios the FCO apparently imposed two fines on the relevant companies, one for each infringement (see case summary in German here).  This seems to be a new development in the FCO’s fining practice regarding bid rigging.  (The public prosecution office Düsseldorf is competent for and prosecuted the individuals involved in public bid rigging.)

Vertical price fixing (resale price maintenance, RPM)

On April 16, 2025, the FCO imposed fines totaling € 6 million on companies Sennheiser and Sonova, and on three employees for resale price maintenance related to audioproducts (see press release here).  Sennheiser started the conduct in 2015, which Sonova continued after its acquisition of Sennheiser’s audioproducts business, best known for its headphones, in March 2022.  The proceedings were triggered by an investigation of the Austrian competition agency that had requested assistance from the FCO in a dawn raid in September 2022.

The relevant conduct included Sennheiser/Sonova employees monitoring end customer pricing of dealers regarding certain premium headphones, including via software.  When these prices went below the recommended resale prices and/or other dealers complained, Sennheiser would contact the relevant dealers and intervene to increase prices again.  This was often done without explicitly referring to increasing prices, but by providing an indirect message that would be understood by the dealers accordingly (see case summary in German here), and the FCO found that most of them indeed increased prices afterwards.  Within Sennheiser, these interventions were labelled as enforcing compliance with “selective distribution criteria” to give the measures a legitimate appearance.  The codename had its origin in an antitrust compliance training, in which lawyers had explained that requesting dealers to adapt resale prices was prohibited, but that Sennheiser was allowed to request adherence to the selective distribution criteria.  Both Sennheiser and Sonova cooperated with the FCO and settled the case, which was reflected in reduced fines.

Antitrust – Horizontal cooperation

No concerns against CO₂ pipeline cooperations

The FCO did not raise competitive concerns regarding two planned CO₂ pipeline construction projects envisaged by Open Grid Europe GmbH (OGE), the operator of the largest gas transmission system in western Germany, one with ONTRAS Gastransport GmbH (“ONTRAS”), a gas transmission system operator based in eastern Germany, and another in cooperation with Belgian company Fluxys S.A. (“Fluxys”).  OGE had requested guidance from the FCO prior to engaging in the projects due to the enormous investment required (see press release here).  OGE and ONTRAS plan to build an export pipeline connecting a region with high-emission industries to possible export locations.  OGE and Fluxys, OGE plan building a pipeline system connecting western and southern Germany to the German-Belgian border, from where Fluxys plans a CO₂ transit pipeline running through Belgium to the coast.

The FCO noted that the companies agreed on which pipeline sections each of them would build, respectively.  The implementation of the projects would also require a certain exchange of information between the system operators when coordinating pipeline sizing and routing.  For investment certainty purposes, the plans also include long-term contracts with so-called anchor customers.  The FCO found it unlikely that the parties would engage in competing projects in the next few years, even absent the cooperation.  Accordingly, the projects would generally not raise serious competition concerns.  The FCO stressed that the details of the cooperation still need to comply with competition law, including that the cooperation is limited to what is necessary to implement the projects, given that the parties compete in other areas.  The FCO also noted that the projects are currently at a very early stage and that the CO₂ transport market is very dynamic, so that it may have to reassess individual parts of the projects.  It also means that this is not a carte blanche for any potential future competing CO₂ pipeline cooperation project.

Information exchange platform for remaining semiconductor supplies in the automotive industry

The FCO informed German association of the Automotive Industry (VDA) on October 30, 2025, that it would not investigate the VDA’s planned platform for exchanging information on remaining semiconductor supplies (see press release here), against the background of an impending shortage of semiconductors manufactured by Nexperia, used in many vehicle components.  The platform’s aim was to provide the automotive industry with a tool for managing the supply of and demand for remaining semiconductor inventories.  The FCO noted that while the participating automotive suppliers compete in procuring semiconductors, the planned information exchange might contribute to improving the distribution of products and deferring production constraints for as long as possible, which would ultimately also benefit end consumers.  The FCO stressed that the design of the platform included several safety measures: offers would be posted anonymously, without expected price indications; expressions of interest would be passed on to suppliers on a bilateral basis, and negotiations between suppliers and interested buyers would take place outside the platform.  Finally, the platform would be operated by a neutral body for a maximum of six months. 

Sector inquiry/New Competition Tool

Wholesale of fuels sector inquiry

On February 19, 2025, the FCO published the final report of its sector inquiry into refineries and wholesale of fuels (see press release here and executive summary of the report here), which focused on supply streams, contractual terms and pricing structures involved in fuel trading in Germany. 

The FCO concluded that price assessments, largely provided by two specialized independent service providers for Germany, play a significant role in price setting.  The FCO noted that these assessments are based on information provided by market players and usually published daily at the end of the trading day.  Sometimes they also provide sensitive market information, such as on specific transactions.  While the FCO did not find any competition law infringement and consider the price assessments to be per se anticompetitive, it noted that they pose considerable risks to competition in their current format, leading to increased transparency which might facilitate tacit collusion, and because individual market players might manipulate the results.  The FCO contemplated using the new competition tool in Section 32f(3) ARC in this respect, one condition of which is establishing a malfunctioning of competition.

Wholesale of fuels opening of proceedings under new competition tool

On March 6, 2025, the FCO indeed opened proceedings based on the new competition tool into the fuels wholesale market (see press release here).  This is the first time the FCO has used its powers under the tool.  The FCO planned to first examine whether there is a significant and continuing malfunctioning of competition based on structural conditions, which cannot be tackled with traditional competition law tools.  If that is the case, the FCO might impose targeted measures to remedy the situation, which under the new competition tool is possible even absent a competition law infringement.  The proceedings focus on the mentioned price assessments: the FCO will examine how the provision of price information services by Argus Media and S&P Global, the two most commonly used providers in Germany, affects competition in the sector.  The outcome of the analysis will be of interest, also in light of the very strict stance the FCO typically takes on (direct or indirect) illicit information exchange in other industries and cartel cases.  In this context, the timing of the “publication” via the service providers may be decisive.  This might provide an opportunity for the FCO to provide more guidance on what can be considered “historical information” in dynamic industries.

Damages litigation

In 2025, some courts – maybe emboldened by the FCJ’s Truck IV ruling that under the burden-of-proof rules claimants do not have to submit detailed economic expert opinions/comparative studies to quantify the amount of damages (see blogpost on 2024 developments in Germany here) – showed a tendency to leave aside economic expert opinions and carry out their own estimate of the amount of damages, based on the discretion they have to do so.  In both cases the courts were convinced that damage had occurred and did explicitly not want to reject the claims because of the practical difficulties with quantifying the amount.

OLG Stuttgart Bathroom fittings

The case concerned follow-on damages based on the Commission’s bathroom fittings cartel decision.  On November 20, 2025, the Stuttgart Cour of Appeals found in favor of damages claims against one cartelist (for a blogpost on the ruling see here).  The court was convinced that damages had occurred, for which there was a strong factual presumption.  The court did not consider the economic regression analysis provided by the claimant as appropriate for the facts of the case.  It established its own framework to determine a minimum damage amount, independent of comparative studies: (i) establish that there was a price effect (preponderant probability), based on the factual assumption and details of the case (type of conduct, duration, market coverage, etc.); (ii) determine whether to put the case within what the court calls ‘regular corridor’ of a 5 to 25% overcharge on the first market level (based on various meta-studies on cartel price effects); (iii) refine the overcharge estimate within the corridor based on the details of the case and economic principles, which in the case at hand led to an estimate of 21-23% overcharge; (iv and v) determine pass-on to the claimant, who was an indirect purchaser) and potential additional pass on by the claimant.  The court announced that it would apply this framework in future cases.

LG Berlin II Google Shopping

On November 13, 20205, the Berlin District Court II awarded two comparison shopping websites (Idealo and Producto) damages against Google in follow-on damages litigation to the European Commission’s Google Shopping case in the first instance (ca. € 485 million and € 107 million, respectively).  These were follow-on damages litigation cases in which the infringement was the abuse of dominance and not a cartel.  Accordingly, principles previously developed for cartel follow-on damages did not necessarily apply.

For the question if damages occurred, the court referred to the Commission decision, i.e., the specific theory of harm and the foreclosing effects set out therein.  The court reasoned that the Commission had established that Google’s conduct resulted in reduced traffic to competing comparison sites, which led to the court’s conclusion that the claimants generally suffered damages.

Regarding the damage’s amount, the court rejected both the economic opinions provided by claimants and defendant and developed its own approach for estimating the amount: it sought to determine the hypothetical traffic the claimants would have had absent the infringement by taking the general turnover increase rate in ecommerce in Germany during the infringement period and applying it to the claimants.  The court then subtracted the claimants’ costs to determine lost profits.  The court qualified this as a type of comparison market analysis.  It explained that failing to establish a detailed counterfactual analysis should not result in rejecting the award of any damage to the claimants.