Europe is preparing for the next Parliament, the next Commission – and all the challenges coming up these days. So, what is the European Union supposed to do, once the successors of Margrethe Vestager & Co. are sworn in? To be prepared, the institutions asked two Italian bigwigs for reports – the Council turned to Enrico Letta, the Commission to Mario Draghi. The Letta Report is now out, and D’Kart turned to another great Italian, Giorgio Monti, Professor at the Tilburg Law and Economics Center, to dissect the Letta Report. Here is his report on the report. I have no idea why Enrico Letta ..read more

The Digital Markets Act shows its teeth: The European Commission opened the first investigations for non-compliance against Apple, Alphabet and Meta. Rupprecht Podszun reports on the first 20 days of DMA razzle-dazzle. He also looks back at the Bundeskartellamt’s Berlin IKK conference and he has some news from his Chair that he wishes to share.   Breathtaking If DMA enforcement keeps up its March-marching pace I voluntarily switch my interest to a more relaxed field, energy law or so. On March 1, it was announced that Booking.com, X and ByteDance (with its ad service) may qualify as new ..read more

Dr. Gerhard Klumpe, one of Germany’s best-known antitrust judges, discussed private antitrust enforcement in leading jurisdictions in Brussels. For our blog D’Kart, the presiding judge at Dortmund Regional Court describes his impressions of international trends in private enforcement. Don’t You (Forget About Me) – not only is this Simple Minds anthem familiar to anyone who grew up in the 1980s, it is also the defining music of the film The Breakfast Club, in which five people meet in the morning to talk about profound problems and reveal a lot about themselves or their experiences. The set-up ..read more

The annual conference of the Studienvereinigung Kartellrecht took place in Bonn on 7 December 2023. Once again this year, the focus was on the major and minor problems of competition law, on looking back and looking forward, but also on the love of the local press – and very specific tastes in the Bundeskartellamt. Johannes Weichbrodt reports. Traditions are as much a part of Christmas as the star on the fir tree. The family always comes together for the festive season. The food is the same as always, even if the wine is not to the liking of a single youngster who, having recently st ..read more

This is the D’Kart Antitrust Advent Calendar 2023!  Every day in the run-up to Christmas we will open a new door for you with a question to answer. This is competition, you know, you have to perform! To help you with the answers, we generated pictures illustrating 24 key moments of the year. Since we are really cutting-edge here at Düsseldorf (and you do not expect anything less, we know) we used Artificial Intelligence to create the pictures. The magics of AI will certainly help you to remember what was going on in courts and conferences, in agencies and arenas. Sometimes, we g ..read more

I was recently at the Higher Regional Court in Düsseldorf and followed a hearing – you may have read about it here. As we were still standing in the corridors afterwards, an employee of the Bundeskartellamt asked me whether it would be back this year… And when I recorded our podcast “Bei Anruf Wettbewerb” with Justus Haucap yesterday, he asked me on air whether it would be back this year… and both of them had anticipating eyes. And of course! It will be back again! What? More on that in a moment. Let’s start with today’s reason for big expectations: our visiting professor Ariel Ezrachi, whom w ..read more

It’s about elderly ladies, an arrow diagram and has somethig to do with media: the German Bundeskartellamt defended a merger clearance decision before the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court – a competitor would have preferred a prohibition. Rupprecht Podszun was at the oral hearing of the 1st Cartel Senate and reports. Wednesday mornings at the OLG When lawyer Till Steinvorth is given the floor, it is 11:27 a.m. on Wednesday, 15 November 2023, it is clear that he could pack his stuff and leave. It had taken presiding Judge Jürgen Breiler exactly 17 minutes to summarise the facts and the legal s ..read more

The 11th amendment to the German competition law act (GWB) has entered into force. The 12th amendment of the GWB is being prepared. Is GWB13 around the corner? We don’t have an answer to this question (which is not far-fetched) – but we do have the most important news of the week, compiled by Rupprecht Podszun. The knot We recently spoke to an observer of the antitrust scene in Germany who resides at Cologne, and he explained that his location is ideal: the authorities in Brussels and Bonn are close by, as is “the Düsseldorf knot” (in German: Der Düsseldorfer Knoten). That’s actually ..read more

In Düsseldorf, the association of competition lawyers called “Studienvereinigung Kartellrecht” held a meeting to discuss litigation on cartel damages. Dr. Gerhard Klumpe, one of the most prolific German antitrust judges, was on the panel. Here he gives his impressions of the evening. Say, a lawyer, a competition economist and a judge meet at a bar table… when a story begins like this, we are either in for a good laugh or – with the additional information that it takes place as an all-evening event in front of a sold-out house and that the matter involves talking about crystal balls, fortu ..read more

What do competition law enforcers actually talk about when they meet? We sent Rupprecht Podszun to listen in at the International Competition Network’s Annual Conference, this year in Barcelona. Here is his conference debriefing in the form of an interview, revealing – inter alia – missing film titles, a funny misunderstanding and a new topic for antitrust enforcement. Name of the event: Annual Meeting of the International Competition Network (ICN) Place & time: La Llota de Mar, Barcelona (a beautiful old building, yet with miserable acoustics in the main hall), 17-20 October 202 ..read more