Review of 2024

The Bundeskartellamt’s activities in 2024:

- Fines amounting to approximately 19.4 million euros imposed for illegal cartel agreements
- Proceedings against Amazon, Apple, Alphabet/Google, Meta/Facebook and Microsoft
- Approximately 900 company mergers examined
- Sector inquiry into electric vehicle charging stations completed; inquiry into the mineral oil sector almost complete
- Around 115 applications for review in public procurement cases examined
- Competition Register consulted around 1,100 times a day; around 7,700 new entries

 Control of abusive practices in the energy sector and in key industries

Andreas Mundt, President of the Bundeskartellamt: “The economy is experiencing difficult times. It is therefore all the more important for competition authorities to ensure consumer protection and fair competition through abuse control. For example, we are conducting proceedings against several district heating suppliers to determine whether their prices were reasonable or whether consumers were overcharged. We are also looking at whether companies in the food sector, both at the level of retailers and the level of large producers, have abused their market power in an unlawful way. We are currently also dealing with the extreme fluctuations in electricity prices during periods of low renewable energy generation caused by cloudy or windless conditions, known as ‘Dunkelflaute’.”

The Bundeskartellamt is conducting abuse proceedings in the food sector against Coca-Cola, for example, to examine the company’s terms and conditions, in particular its rebate structure for food retailers (see press release of 14 November 2023), and against EDEKA due to the company’s demands raised in connection with introducing the PAYBACK loyalty programme. In the district heating sector, the Bundeskartellamt is conducting several cases against suppliers for using price adjustment clauses (see press release of 16 November 2023). One of the Bundeskartellamt’s tasks in the electricity market is to continuously monitor the formation of electricity prices and the output of power plants. The current price spikes may well be a normal and undistorted result of market activities. But the Bundeskartellamt will take a very close look at how prices are set during the periods of low renewable energy generation (see also the press releases on the market power report and the monitoring report [german version]).

Cartel prosecution

In 2024 the Bundeskartellamt imposed fines amounting to around 19.4 million euros on three companies and one individual. The sectors included protective clothing, broadband devices and construction services.

Andreas Mundt: “Since 2019 we have imposed fines totalling around 1.3 billion euros despite a temporary dip due to the Covid pandemic. Several major cartel cases are ongoing and the number of dawn raids remains high. Our leniency programme is widely used, we receive more and more valuable information through our whistleblowing systems and we use software-based market screening methods to find indications of collusion. To further increase our effectiveness in identifying collusive behaviour, we are planning to make greater use of AI in the future. No cartel can consider itself safe.”

In 2024 the Bundeskartellamt carried out a total of 11 dawn raids, three of which in the context of providing official assistance to other authorities. 17 companies informed the Bundeskartellamt of violations in their sector by making use of the authority’s leniency programme. Many more tip-offs were received from other sources. Indeed, the vast majority of cartel fine proceedings currently conducted is now based on information received through sources other than the leniency programme. This also includes the external reporting unit launched under the Whistleblower Protection Act (HinSchG) in July 2023, which affords whistleblowers a particularly high level of protection.

Digital economy

Andreas Mundt: “The digital economy remains high on our agenda. We have completed our Facebook case, which is considered groundbreaking far beyond Germany. The Federal Court of Justice has handed down the first landmark decision in extended abuse control proceedings against large digital companies, fully confirming our position in the Amazon case. Many more cases against big tech companies are ongoing. One of today’s major issues is AI. It offers enormous potential, but also poses a risk to competition. Big tech is present in almost every part of the value chain, from data to the cloud as the infrastructure for AI to proprietary LLMs. We are therefore increasingly focusing on the risk of new dependencies and the possible exacerbation of existing competition problems.”

In 2024 the Bundeskartellamt was able to conclude its case against Meta (formerly Facebook), which had been pending before court for several years. The result is a set of measures that give Facebook users much better options when it comes to combining their data (see press release of 10 October 2024).

In recent years, the Bundeskartellamt has already concluded some and continued to proceed with extended abuse control cases against large digital companies (link to list of proceedings conducted under Section 19a GWB). Last year, the Bundeskartellamt also found Microsoft to be a company of paramount significance for competition across markets and therefore subject to extended abuse control under Section 19a of the German Competition Act (GWB). The decision is final, as are the previous decisions in the Meta/Facebook, Google/Alphabet and Amazon cases (the latter confirmed by the Federal Court of Justice in 2024). The Apple case is still pending before the Federal Court of Justice. On the basis of Section 19a GWB, the Bundeskartellamt can prohibit companies in such positions of power from engaging in anti-competitive practices.

Merger control

In 2024 the Bundeskartellamt reviewed around 900 merger projects. Ten of these mergers were closely examined in second phase proceedings. The takeover of University Hospital Mannheim by Heidelberg University Hospital was prohibited (see press release of 26 July 2024). Four transactions were withdrawn, three mergers were cleared and two merger proceedings are still ongoing.

Andreas Mundt: “The new EU Commission is now getting down to work in Brussels, with a focus on competitiveness. A vigorous competition policy is key to ensuring international competitiveness. We need European champions, businesses that are strong on an international scale. Businesses can be considered successful champions if they excel in a competitive environment. This is why we need a strong competition regime. Merger control is and will remain our most important tool in this respect. It is the only way to prevent the emergence of market power and avoid the cumbersome task of monitoring the companies’ behaviour after the merger. This is particularly true when it comes to acquisitions of innovative AI start-ups.”

In connection with protecting competition in innovation and controlling “killer acquisitions”, the transaction value threshold has become increasingly important in German competition law. It allows the Bundeskartellamt to assess important mergers which do not meet the turnover thresholds under merger control rules but which involve a correspondingly high purchase price for the target companies (such as in the Thermo Fisher/Olink case – see press release of 17 June 2024 – or the ongoing Edwards Lifesciences/JenaValve case).

Abuse control in the context of energy price relief

In 2024 the Bundeskartellamt initiated another 13 review proceedings against energy suppliers in connection with the control of abusive practices relating to energy price relief measures. Of the 70 review proceedings initiated since May 2023, 33 concern natural gas suppliers, 17 heat suppliers and 20 electricity suppliers. Thirteen proceedings have since been discontinued for various reasons.

Andreas Mundt: “The state has spent billions on energy price relief measures. Our abuse control proceedings ensure that companies don’t wrongly claim relief payments. This is how we protect the public purse and the taxpayers. The laws governing the price relief measures allow businesses to settle the advance payments with the processing bodies by 31 May 2025 at the latest. At this stage, we expect to have collected a sufficient amount of robust data by summer 2025 to complete the last assessments.”

Competition Register for Public Procurement

The Competition Register is the first large and fully digital register in public administration and has been in full operation for two and a half years now. Public contracting entities consult the register an average of 1,100 times a day via an online interface to check whether a company has to be excluded from a public procurement procedure for having committed economic crimes.

Andreas Mundt: “The Competition Register has become an efficient system for providing information to public contracting entities, which is reflected in the consistently high number of searches. In this way, the register helps to ensure that contracting entities have access to reliable information while at the same time creating incentives for businesses to step up their compliance efforts.”

Searches by public contracting entities consulting the register result in an average of several positive hits per week. Since its launch, a total of around 19,000 entries have been added to the register (for tax offences, underpayment of social security contributions or antitrust violations, for example).