C.H. Beck can acquire share in RA-MICRO

The Bundeskartellamt has cleared the acquisition of a minority share in the provider of practice management software for law firms, RA MICRO Software AG, Berlin, by the publishing house C.H. Beck, Munich, which publishes expert legal information. The authority cleared the acquisition after an extensive preliminary examination under merger control.RA MICRO

Andreas Mundt, President of the Bundeskartellamt: “The companies have a very strong position on their respective markets. At the same time there is an overlap in the customer groups in the law firm sector. In our examination we focused in particular on the possible effects of a closer integration between digital access to expert legal information and the functions of law practice management software. In terms of competition law, the question arose whether the merger could impede competitors in future, for instance were C.H. Beck to grant RA-MICRO privileged access to digital content, excluding other competitors from new functions. However, there were no tangible indications of such strategies. The fact that the C.H. Beck publishing house is only acquiring a minority shareholding also played a role in our decision.”

Although C.H. Beck and RA-MICRO are not direct competitors, they are active on neighbouring markets with partially overlapping customer groups. Both C.H. Beck with its legal online database service ‘beck-online’ and RA-MICROS’s law practice management software have a very strong position in these markets. C.H. Beck also has a share in a smaller competitor of RA-MICRO.

The investigations showed in particular that, as a result of the merger, the C.H. Beck publishing house is not expected to grant RA-MICRO or other associated companies privileged access to its online database and, by that means, hinder third competitors from offering new functions. The development of such functions is currently still unclear and also not limited to the providers of law practice management software. According to the investigations, C.H. Beck currently has no plans to offer programming interfaces in the immediate future to further integrate expert legal information in the applications of third companies. Were such interfaces to be offered to providers of law practice management software in future, they should be made equally available to all interested providers.

As the merger only involves a non-controlling minority shareholding, the parties are not pooling their resources as would be the case in a complete acquisition. They are still regarded as independent companies with the result that they remain fully subject to the prohibition of the abuse of a dominant position as well as the prohibition of anti-competitive agreements, in particular. Any future acquisition by the Beck publishing house of a majority shareholding or acquisition of control would constitute another merger and have to be examined under merger control once again