Earlier this week, the Bundeskartellamt (FCO) published its annual report covering 2025 and early 2026. If there was a single theme running through the FCO’s 2025/26 Annual Report, it is this: Competition policy is no longer confined to traditional antitrust questions. It has become a tool for managing geopolitical shocks, digital gatekeepers, energy security, AI-driven markets, and even fuel-price crises. President Andreas Mundt’s regulator finds itself at the center of several battles simultaneously. The report reads less like the annual update of a classic competition agency and more like the playbook of a regulator adapting to a rapidly changing economy.
The numbers behind the year
A few statistics help put the FCO’s activities into perspective:
- Fines: The FCO imposed fines of approx. EUR 10 million and collected fines of approx. EUR 18 million from previous proceedings. In addition, the FCO ordered the disgorgement of (so far) EUR 59 million in profits from Amazon.
- Merger control: Of the 876 merger control filings reviewed by the FCO, around 94% (826) were cleared in Phase I. Only two cases were sent to Phase II. Notably, of the three Phase II cases concluded by the FCO, none was cleared – one deal was prohibited, one was discontinued, and in one case the filing was withdrawn. This is an even “worse” statistic than the otherwise typical 50/50-split between clearances and prohibitions/withdrawals in German Phase II.
- Abuse of dominance: The FCO opened seven new abuse of dominance proceedings and concluded three such cases – potentially indicating a general uptick in abuse of dominance proceedings.
- Budget and personnel: The FCO’s budget remained stable at approx. EUR 60.2 million (a slight dip compared to the EUR 60.6 million the previous year), but the number of staff increased by 30 to approx. 480.
Key areas of focus
The report provides a comprehensive overview of the FCO’s activities across a wide range of sectors. Among them, three areas stand out in particular: The fuel sector, the digital economy and Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Fuel sector – crisis intervention becomes competition policy
Following the outbreak of the Iran crisis and the sharp rises in fuel prices, the FCO was granted new powers to address potential anti-competitive conduct in the fuel sector (we blogged about it here). The FCO makes clear that it intends to keep the sector under close scrutiny. It has launched preliminary investigations involving twelve owners of German refineries, requesting information on their pricing practices and the extent to which recent geopolitical developments have influenced pricing decisions.
The regulator’s long-term commitment to this sector is reflected institutionally as well. A new 13th Decision Division was established with a dedicated focus on oil and fuel markets. Competition regulators frequently investigate sectors; far less frequently do they create an entirely new organisational unit for them. That, in itself, signals the importance the FCO assigns to fuel markets.
Digital economy – business as usual, but still central
The digital economy remains a cornerstone of the FCO’s enforcement agenda.
The FCO continues to pursue proceedings against major digital platforms such as Apple, Google and Amazon. In February 2026, for example, it prohibited Amazon from using price control mechanisms, adding another chapter to the FCO’s increasingly extensive body of digital enforcement.
The declared objective remains familiar: Preventing (allegedly) dominant digital ecosystems from closing off access to markets and ensuring that competition remains possible even in highly concentrated digital environments.
In that sense, the report reflects continuity rather than revolution. The FCO’s digital agenda is no longer a novel area of enforcement – it has become part of the regulator’s core business.
AI – from emerging topic to enforcement priority
Perhaps the most interesting development is the prominence given to AI.
AI is closely linked to the digital economy. Although the digital economy has already been on the radar of the FCO’s work for some time, AI has only occasionally appeared in previous reports. This year, however, it receives dedicated and significantly more detailed treatment. This suggests that the FCO views AI as a present competition concern.
To deepen its understanding of the topic, the FCO established an expert group on “AI and Competition” (notably only German/European stakeholders are members). Discussions focused on questions that are rapidly moving to the forefront of competition policy debates worldwide: The concentration of power along the AI value chain, the importance of cloud services in the development of AI, and the competitive dynamics surrounding major providers of cloud services. The FCO leaves little doubt that it is paying particular attention to whether AI may reinforce existing positions of market power held by large digital platforms.
At the same time, AI is no longer merely an object of investigation. The FCO reports that it is also beginning to use AI tools in its own day-to-day work, illustrating how technological change is affecting both regulators and regulated firms alike.
Looking ahead
None of the above priorities come as a surprise. Digital markets, energy security and technological transformation are likely to remain central themes for competition regulators for years to come.
Above all, AI as a factor in competition is still a relatively new topic. However, it plays a role in antitrust in various ways – see, for example, our blogpost on prompts as evidentiary data or coordination through AI-tools. For now, the FCO appears to be positioning itself early in this debate. It will therefore be interesting to see how the FCO’s assessment of AI in the context of competition will develop over the next years.
Picture by Roman Kraft via Unsplash
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