“Without Legal Basis – Criticism of Publishing Case Reports by the German Bundeskartellamt”

Dr. Jens Steger, an antitrust lawyer in our Frankfurt office, authors “Without Legal Basis” which appears in the German newspaper “Lebensmittelzeitung” (No. 21 of May 24, 2013), the leading newspaper for the food sector.

Since 2009 the German Bundeskartellamt (Federal Cartel Office) has been publishing case reports (so called “Fallberichte”) on its website regarding certain proceedings.  Steger  analyzes the admissibility of these case report publications related to German merger control law with a special regard to the food sector. In this context he analyzes the German merger case  EDEKA/RATIO and comes to the conclusion that Bundeskartellamt‘s publishing of case reports likely violates German law. Involved companies were the German EDEKA group, the RATIO group, Bartels-Langness and Kaufland. Finally, Steger draws a short parallel to the publication of so called “plea-agreements” in the US.

The article can be found: Lebensmittel Zeitung
                                              Presse Katalog Online-Kiosk