Merger control, cartel prohibition,
state aid law
In the field of cartel law, we have assisted with small, large and even so-called mega mergers in practically every area and every industry, e.g. the merger of Thyssen/ Krupp.
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
18.08.1998
Since mergers subject to control regimes cannot be completed until they have been cleared by the responsible antitrust authorities, merger control is not just a question of »all or nothing«, but above all a question of time. For time is money.
For example, costs of € 400,000 in daily interest alone were incurred during sale of a telecommunications company. We conducted the merger proceedings before the German Federal Cartel Office (Bundeskartellamt) and obtained approval within the shortest possible time.
Close and trusting cooperation with national and international competition authorities — above all with the Federal Cartel Office and the Commission of the European Communities — is a central prerequisite for efficient and successful realisation of notifiable mergers. We have established this trust through our now decades of expertise and experience in this field.
Investigation proceedings by the competition authorities due to alleged violations of the ban on cartels (e.g. due to collusion) are also of extreme economic importance. In this case, the affected companies are at risk of being penalised with very high fines, which in some cases have even reached three-figure million sums in recent years. Here also, we have represented both large and small companies in numerous cases and defended them in formal proceedings. We represented the German market leaders in such attention-grabbing cases as the German cement cartel case (total fines of over 660m euros) and the European plasterboard case (total fines 478m euros).
We also have extensive experience in all other areas of cartel law. In the cooperation between Blohm + Voss GmbH, Thyssen Nordseewerke GmbH and Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft AG in the field of warships/submarines, we were the cartel representatives, for example. We have provided assistance and representation in many of the relatively rare decartelisation cases in recent years. Like cartel law, state aid law also deals with protecting and ensuring free competition. State aid is a particularly sensitive area, because the state intervenes directly in the market in this case.
In our most important case in state aid law so far, the question to be clarified was whether additional competitive restrictions, possibly also for a limited period, can be imposed on a company that has received state support in addition to repayment of the aid in order to reduce the distortion in competition caused by the (permissible) granting of aid.
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
19.08.1998
The company that received financial support would have become insolvent without state aid. The state aid reestablished its competitiveness. Aid was granted only to the extent that was necessary in order to make the company competitive again. In all cases where aid is granted, a conflict arises in relation to the competitors of the beneficiary company. The solution for this conflict can be found in the area of aid approval. We developed a pragmatic solution that met both the requirements of the European Commission as well as the entrepreneurial goals of the affected company.
We have many years of experience and expertise in all three of the areas described above — merger control, cartel prohibition and state aid law.