Germany: Further legislative initiatives and measures

In addition to the greater emphasis on consumer protection, a number of other changes in German antitrust law are planned in the context of the forthcoming 10th amendment to the Act against Restraints of Competition, particularly in the area of the prohibition on abusing a dominant market position in digital business. There will be procedural improvements to accelerate these proceedings and improve the usability of interim measures (see details below in our feature 'Increasing importance of the prohibition on abusing a dominant market position in the digital economy').

Furthermore, these innovations are to be accompanied by the implementation of the ECN+ Directive, which is to give the competition authorities of the Member States additional powers to ensure uniform enforcement of European antitrust law. Government officials plan to present a first draft of the 10th Amendment to the Act against Restraints of Competition later this year. The legislative process should then be completed by the end of 2020.

In addition, the Federal Government recently set up a Commission on Competition Law 4.0 in order to further strengthen German and European antitrust law to face the challenges of digital developments. By autumn 2019, the Commission, composed of lawyers, judges and academics, will present specific recommendations, in particular on European antitrust law. These will then also be made available to the European Commission, which will be newly composed after the European elections in May 2019.