Sustainability initiatives and competition law practice – virtual meeting of the Working Group on Competition Law

The first ever virtual meeting of the Working Group on Competition Law was held on 1 October 2020. The Bundeskartellamt had invited more than 130 competition law experts to discuss and exchange views on the theme “Open markets and sustainable economic activity – public interest objectives as a challenge for competition law practice.”

The Working Group on Competition Law is made up of a large number of university professors from law and economics faculties, high-ranking representatives of national and European competition authorities and ministries, as well as judges from the antitrust divisions of the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court and the Federal Court of Justice. For more than 50 years the group has met annually to discuss fundamental issues of competition policy.

Professor Dr Konrad Ost, Vice President of the Bundeskartellamt: “The sustainable use of our resources is one of the major issues of our time. Public expectations are high – especially with regard to the business community and individual companies. Competition law and competition authorities come into play whenever companies seek ways to cooperate in sustainability matters. One question in this respect is how to take greater account of sustainability aspects in assessments under competition law and in this way increase legal certainty for companies. Our meeting provides important ground work and promotes the exchange with academic experts.”

This year’s conference was chaired by Professor Dr Ost. The discussion kicked off with an interview with Martijn Snoep, Chairman of the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM). In the panel discussion that followed Professor Dr Thomas Ackermann, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Professor Dr Achim Wambach, ZEW Mannheim and former chair of the Monopolies Commission, and Professor Dr Heike Schweitzer, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, discussed, among other things, the ACM’s revised draft guidelines on dealing with sustainability initiatives recently made available for consultation.

The discussion also included deliberations on the extent to which competition authorities should have the obligation to find a balance between opposing competition goals and public interest objectives and to enforce such goals in the context of business cooperation; the role the legislator is supposed to play in this respect was also discussed.