Despite the pandemic, 2020 has been a very busy year for the Federal Cartel Office (“FCO”) and courts in the field of competition law in Germany. The following is merely a selection of interesting…
Despite best efforts of the European legislator as well as the CJEU, from a claimant’s perspective, private enforcement litigation before German Courts in the trucks cartel [Link] must be an…
The government’s draft for new competition rules, including on (digital) platforms, published in September 2020 (see here) includes a provision specifically aimed at powerful digital gatekeepers,…
The German Federal Cartel Authority continues its campaign against tech-giants by once again launching a probe into Amazon. This time, Amazon is not the only company affected. The authority also…
On July 17, 2019, the German Bundeskartellamt (Federal Cartel Office, “FCO”) terminated its dominance probe into Amazon’s business terms towards sellers on its marketplace after Amazon agreed to…
On June 4, 2019, the Düsseldorf Court of Appeal quashed the decision of the Federal Cartel Office (“FCO”) prohibiting Booking.com to operate so-called narrow most favored nation (MFN) clauses (or…
On February 7, 2019, Germany’s Federal Cartel Office (“FCO”) issued its long-awaited decision in the Facebook case, see press release and background paper in English here.
It qualifies Facebook’s…
On September 4, 2018, the German Ministry for Economic Affairs has published a report by economic and legal experts analyzing some key issues of abuse of market power in the digital platform economy…
In July 2005, Germany adopted a new law providing that the limitation period for damage claims is suspended during the investigation of a competition authority (“Suspension Provision”). Ever since,…
On May 14, 2018, the German and Austrian competition authorities have published joint draft guidelines on the new transaction value merger thresholds, including an English translation (see here).…
