Competition Outlook 2026

Our Antitrust & Competition practice group has once again put together the main trends in antitrust and competition law in our Competition Outlook for 2026. While taking a look at both past and future developments, the Competition Outlook 2026 provides an easy-to-digest summary of the key topics.

In this Competition Outlook, our Antitrust & Competition practice group once again presents a summary of the key developments in antitrust and competition law at national and European levels. In its tried and tested format, our Competition Outlook 2026 identifies and reviews the major issues from the past year and offers an in-depth preview of what to expect in the year ahead.

The year 2025 was again marked by significant progress and challenges posed by antitrust enforcement in digital and technology-driven markets. Fines imposed by the European Commission under the Digital Markets Act attracted considerable attention. German courts also delivered landmark judgments in proceedings against digital companies. Parallel to this, the competition authorities stepped up their efforts to address the competition law implications of artificial intelligence and the use of large amounts of data – prompted in part by several regulatory initiatives.

Shifts in the geopolitical landscape and increased attempts to achieve economic resilience have brought the topic of European competitiveness even more into the spotlight. Based on the recommendations of the Draghi report, 2025 saw the launch of targeted reforms to European merger control, with a strong emphasis on innovation-friendly, resilient and sustainable competition structures. Besides this, new legal structures have emerged in European state aid law that companies from a range of sectors will be able to proactively use, accompanied by more detailed guidance on how the Foreign Subsidies Regulation (“FSR”) should be applied. New digital tools such as Noerr’s FSR Checker can make it far easier to ensure compliance in international transactions. The European Commission will also be prioritising reforms to investment control law and promoting innovation and sustainability.

The year 2025 also brought important changes to the antitrust rules governing sales and distribution, including clearer rules for online retail and the application of block exemption regulations. Regarding private enforcement of competition law, the European Court of Justice set new standards for collective redress and limitation periods in preliminary ruling proceedings, while differing approaches to quantifying damages continued to dominate the trial courts’ case law at the national level.

Our Competition Outlook 2026 contains a compact round-up of these and other developments, providing valuable guidance for the year ahead.