One of the 10 commandments that not only Christians will know is: Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. All Most of us have already learned this basic rule of human behaviour in kindergarten regardless of whether and to which faith they belong(ed). Last week, the European Commission opened a formal investigation into … Continue reading A foul as an abuse of market power?   →

Some of our older readers might recall the TV show “The X-Files”, in which the two FBI agents Scully and Mulder deal with unsolved cases called the X-Files. These cases always had a kind of mystical touch. Not mystical at all is the GAIA-X initiative, in which governments and companies work to design the next … Continue reading The X-Files: No science fiction at all →

On 10 May 2022, the European Commission published its new Vertical Block Exemption Regulation (VBER), which will enter into force in June. Many have published very good summaries on the rules. Some also welcomed the very late changes that were made with regard to information exchange in the context of dual distribution. In this post, … Continue reading The Vertical Block Exemption – how we got where we are →

A month ago, we started our new series about the history of challenging big tech with a post on Microsoft’s interoperability and Media Player case. Since we cover the cases in this series by their start date rather than their end date, today we report on a case that has not ended yet but began … Continue reading A history of challenging big tech – Part II: CPUs & Rebates →

We have given our readers a short overview about the history of foreign investment control in Germany here and have also blogged about certain cases (here). Yesterday, news broke that the German government is set to block the acquisition of Heyer Medical AG by the Chinese Aeonmed – a deal that apparently closed more than … Continue reading Update on German FDI – Government about to prohibit medical deal →

Everyone speaks about regulating big tech. We have also blogged about this topic several times (inter alia here, here and here). In the context of the current discussion, however, it should not be forgotten that "regulating big tech" already has a certain history. The current draft of the Digital Markets Act also contains some provisions … Continue reading A history of challenging big tech – Part I: Interoperability and a Media Player →

After more than two years of Covid 19, people strive to meet in person again. In addition to personal meetings in the private sphere, in-person meetings in the business environment are also on the rise again. Of course, this also includes conferences, many of which have not taken place or have only taken place virtually … Continue reading Antitrust likes to meet →

Fuel prices in Germany and many other countries are rising to heights that were hardly imaginable some time ago. This has led to increasing calls from politicians in recent days for an antitrust review of petrol pricing. In this post, we take a look at respective antitrust actions in the past, try to speculate why … Continue reading All one giant cartel? →

The German Ministry of Economic Affairs (called the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Action since the Green Party took over the ministry, short BMWK) has published the German government’s competition policy agenda for the next three years. We have looked at the most important points (admittedly, not always with the otherwise warranted seriousness). Grist … Continue reading What to expect from Germany’s competition policy in the upcoming years →

Last week, five competition authorities announced to launch a new working group focussed on sharing information to identify and prevent potentially anticompetitive conduct in the global supply and distribution of goods. In this post, we will elaborate why these five cartel authorities in particular are working together (and who is not participating this time). We … Continue reading Supply chains and antitrust →