Federal office of fight against the trusts

The federal Office of fight against the trusts ( Bundeskartellamt , BKartA) is the Autorité of federal competition German. It is a federal administration of higher level which depends directly on the federal minister of the Economy and Technology. It has its seat with Bonn since October 1st, 1999.

Its principal activity consists in supervising the application of the relative law to the restrictions of competition.

History

At the end of the Second world war, there were many trusts in Germany. The Allies tried to face this problem by creating the first laws anti-trusts.

The activities of the office are based juridically on the relative law with the restrictions of competition ( , GWB), adopted in 1958. Until now, this law was amended seven times; the goals of the last reform, in 2005, in particular consisted in adapting this law to the European Droit, granting more competences to the authorities anti-trusts and improving legal protection on the plan of the Civil law.

Competences

The principal tasks consist in guaranteeing the application of the laws anti-trusts in co-operation with the regional authorities of competition (Landeskartellämter).

There exist two different procedures:

Procedure relating to the administrative contractual fines

The office has several instruments at its disposal. It can:

to take temporary measures;
to retract the exemption of the restrictions of Article 1 GWB, which corresponds to Article 81, subparagraph 1, of the treated on the European Union;
to pronounce contractual fines if one or more companies violate a payment of the GWB;
to confiscate the financial advantage of a company which drew from the profits of an illegal action.

Moreover, it controls the industrials merger of undertakings, because it must prevent the formation of a dominant position by one or more companies so that they cannot exploit this position in an abusive way. The companies which plan to amalgamate must be addressed to BKartA. This one examines the facts and, if necessary, can be opposed to fusion envisaged.

Administrative procedure

The admissible means of recourse against the decisions of BKartA is the complaint near a higher regional court ( , OLG). In certain cases, the complaint causes to suspend the consequences of the decision of BKartA. The court also has the possibility of ordering the extension of the decision, if the law envisages the immediate execution of it.

The means of recourse against the decision of the court which decides complaint is the appeal in front of the Federal court of justice ( , BGH). This means of recourse is admissible only if the applicant puts forward the violation of his rights.

Organization

BKartA includes/understands:

seven departments, including one charged for example to harmonize the practice of the right of the trust enters the sections of decision;
a contentious service;
a service of relations with the press;
ten sections of decision. They are organized like courts: each one of it is made up of a president and four or five assessors assisted by several department heads who prepare the decisions. Their competences are distributed according to the branches of industry and the markets.

Famous cases

; B3 - 20/99 Henkel/Luhns 20.09.1999 BKartA prohibited the fusion of Henkel KGaA (Dusseldorf), manufacturer of detergents (and other maintenance products) with Luhns GMBH (Wuppertal), manufacturer of marks of distribution. The primary reason was the dominant position of Henkel (trade marks: Weißer Riese, Parsley, Spee) on the market of the detergents with a market share of more than 40%. A fusion with Luhns GMBH would have threatened the existence of all the competitors, in particular Procter & Gamble (Ariel, Dash, Vizier) and Rising (Sunil, Omo, Skip).

; B7 - 99/00 Deutsche Telekom/debis 20.09.2000 BkartA approved the sale of the debis AG (Daimler-Benz Inter Services) of Daimler-Benz to the Deutsche Telekom AG. Since then, old the debis AG belongs to T-Systems, a service provider of Deutsche Telekom for the technology of the communication and information. The sale was approved because it did not endanger the free competition and did not contravene the relative law with the restrictions of competition.

; B4 - 09/05 Deutsche Börse AG/London Stock Exchange plc. 27.06.2005 BKartA approved the fusion of the Deutsche Börse AG (DBAG) with the London Stock Exchange plc (Them). BKartA justified its decision while pleading that this fusion could not cause a deterioration of the competition in the field of the infrastructure of the purses for agiotage and that, according to all forecasts, it would not have there an effect on the market shares nor on competition because the two purses carry on their activities on different territories.

; B2 - 31/02 Nordzucker/Union-Zucker 24.06.2002 BKartA approved the fusion of Nordzucker AG (Brunswick) with the Union-Zucker AG (Nordstemmen). To explain its decision, BKartA has advanced that Nordzucker AG had already a dominant position on the market of sugar (all kinds of sugar), that this position would not be reinforced by a fusion with Union-Zucker AG and that, according to all forecasts, the structure of the market would not worsen and this fusion would not drive out any competitor of the market.

External bonds

Bundeskartellamt

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