DuMont media group fined for concluding territorial agreements with the Bonner General-Anzeiger media group

The Bundeskartellamt has imposed fines amounting to a total of 16 million euros on DuMont Mediengruppe GmbH & Co. KG, an individual responsible and a lawyer. The company is accused of concluding an illegal territorial agreement with the Bonner General-Anzeiger media group.

The DuMont group and Bonner General-Anzeiger group had already agreed in December 2000 that either one of the two newspaper publishers largely withdraw its distribution from each of the areas agreed in the Bonn region. This was done by noticeably thinning-out local reporting and in some cases switching newspaper door deliveries to delivery by post. In 2005 the companies safeguarded the territorial agreements which were to run up to 2016 via mutual participations and by awarding the DuMont group a pre-emption right to the Bonner General-Anzeiger group. The pre-emption right was deliberately not disclosed to the Bundeskartellamt although it was of key relevance for its examination of the mutual participations under merger control. The lawyer who was fined had advised the DuMont group during the entire period and was actively involved in the operations.

Andreas Mundt, President of the Bundeskartellamt: “The illegal agreements were concluded at a notary in Switzerland to cover up the operations. With the actual withdrawal of one of the competing newspapers from each of the areas agreed the circulation areas were divided among the publishers to eliminate the competition which had previously existed between them. These type of agreements aimed at phasing out competition between publishers are also prohibited under the newly introduced antitrust exemption provision for the press sector.”

In order to ensure press diversity, Section 30 (2b) sentence 1 of the German Competition Act (Gesetz gegen Wettbewerbsbeschränkungen, GWB) allows cooperations between publishers to strengthen their economic basis for intermedia competition. However, even under this provision which was introduced in summer 2017, price-fixing, territorial and customer agreements are not exempted from the prohibition of cartels.

Following a leniency application by the Bonner General-Anzeiger group, the proceeding was initiated in December 2017 with a dawn raid of DuMont’s head offices and the law firm in which the lawyer is active. In accordance with the Bundeskartellamt's leniency programme no fines were imposed on the Bonner General-Anzeiger group. The DuMont group and the individuals responsible have admitted to the accusations against them and have agreed to a settlement. In calculating the fine the Bundeskartellamt also took account of the fact that the company had cooperated with the authority in clarifying the facts of the case. The fining decisions are not yet final and can be appealed to the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court.

A case summary (in German) in accordance with Section 53 (5) of the German Competition Act (GWB) will be published shortly on the Bundeskartellamt's website.