Private enforcement against digital companies in Germany on the rise

The German Federal Cartel Office (Bundeskartellamt) continued to be active in the digital sector in 2025. As part of its expert roundtable on the subject of “AI and competition” this June, it addressed the danger with selected stakeholders that key stages of the AI value chain are controlled by just a few big digital corporations, meaning that new dependencies could arise in cloud and data markets.

Parallel to this, the Federal Cartel Office is continuing to pursue its stricter monitoring of abusive practices under section 19a of the German Act against Restraints of Competition (Gesetz gegen Wettbewerbsbeschränkungen). Google/Alphabet agreed, for instance, to abandon anti-competitive “tying” practices at Google Automotive Services and the Google Maps Platform and to allow more interoperability. In addition, the Federal Cartel Office expressed concerns about Amazon’s non-transparent price control mechanisms on Amazon Marketplace and the possibly self-preferencing design of Apple’s Tracking Transparency Framework, which governs the obligation of app providers to obtain consent to the collection of users’ data.

However, it was mainly the courts that set new signals in the area of private enforcement in 2025. Mainz Regional Court (Landgericht Mainz) took on what could in some respects be described as a pioneering role by handing down a judgment in August (Case 12 HK O 32/24) regarding private enforcement of the Digital Markets Act (“DMA”) in Germany which attracted a lot of attention. In response to an action by 1&1 (which operates the email services GMX and Web.de), the court banned Google/Alphabet from giving undue preference to its own email service Gmail when its Android smartphones are set up and used. The decision is based directly on the DMA’s prohibition of tying or linking services (Article 5(8) DMA) and obliged Google/Alphabet to adjust its business practices so that alternative email services can also be used effectively. It is noteworthy that the court (without waiting for an official decision by the European Commission) independently interpreted and applied the DMA.

Additionally, Berlin II Regional Court (Landgericht Berlin II) found on 14 November 2025 (Case 16 O 195/19 Kart (2)), that Google/Alphabet had to pay €465 million in damages to the price comparison portal Idealo. The ruling was based on Google’s long-standing preferential display of its own comparison-shopping service in the general search results. The action was based on the European Commission’s 2017 decision, which found that Google had abused its dominant market position in breach of Article 102 TFEU.

The courts’ decisions show that Germany could develop into a central forum for the private enforcement of digital antitrust law in Europe, especially concerning the DMA. Private enforcement is likely to become a pivotal field of digital antitrust law in the future in which Germany is well positioned to take a leading role as a legal forum.

This article is part of the Competition Outlook 2026. You can find all Competition Outlook articles here.