On 2 October, about 100 experts met in Bonn at the invitation of the Bundeskartellamt to discuss the role of competition and competition law in the context of state entrepreneurial activities. The working paper of the meeting, which formed the basis for discussion, and the individual statements of the conference participants are available (in German) […]

The German Bundeskartellamt has recently published its detailed report on the sector inquiry into buyer power in the food retail sector. The inquiry focuses on the conditions of competition between the food retail companies on the one hand and their suppliers on the other. A summary of the final report is available in English.

The Bundeskartellamt recently published new guidelines on the setting of fines for cartel proceedings.

The Bundeskartellamt recently announced its biennial activity report for 2011 and 2012.

Today the German government revealed its refined proposal for an amendment to the German antitrust statute. Key points include: Giving consumer associations the right to file actions aimed at scooping off cartel profits Extending the applicability of German antitrust law to pubic health insurance funds Renewing the sector-specific pricing rules for (dominant) suppliers of electricity […]

  We interrupt today’s regularly scheduled Monopoly Monday blog posting to bring you recent merger developments.   Last week, the Bundeskartellamt published its “Draft Guidance on Substantive Merger Control” for public consultation.  The guidance document is a substantial overhaul of the previous document which was published in 2000 under the title “Principles of Interpretation of […]

  In October, the Bundeskartellamt published a notice on binding quality standards for expert economic opinions. The aim of these standards is to ensure that expert economic opinions submitted to the authority as part of competition law proceedings satisfy minimum quality requirements. The notice is also intended to standardize the process of submission and evaluation […]

  The Danish Competition Authority recently released a report that identifies and quantifies the competition culture in Denmark, Germany, and the United Kingdom. The results are based on empirical data from a qualitative survey among more that two thousands firms and several thousands consumers. The report concludes that Danish firms have a potential to increase […]

  The Advocacy Working Group has an ongoing work stream on market studies. Last year, the AWG produced a comparative report on the practice of market studies in 37 member jurisdictions, available here. For this year’s annual conference, the AWG produced a “Market Studies Good Practice Handbook” and developed a “Market Studies Information Store.” The […]

Today’s Web Wednesday returns the favor and recognizes member agencies that highlight their involvement in the ICN. To varying degrees, member agencies describe their international work, their participation in the ICN and the work of the ICN more generally, post contributions or their ICN templates, or just provide a link to find the ICN. The […]