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Germany: Regulator unveils revised cartel fining procedures

By  |  June 25, 2013

Germany’s antitrust regulator, the Bundesartellamt, has revealed its new guidelines to set fines of antitrust violators. While the authority notes that the levels of fines will not be changed much, the guidelines to issuing such sanctions had to be changed, said the watchdog’s president Andreas Mundt, due to the recent decision by the Federal Court of Justice. The Court recently decided that the policy which states fines can amount to up to 10 percent of a company’s annual turnover is a framework that should apply to Germany criminal law; up until this decision, says the regulator, the “10 percent rule” was used as a capping threshold, which is the same practice used by the European Commission. Because of the conflicting interpretations, the Bundeskartellamt issued an amendment, which allows both a company’s annual turnover as well as the turnover acquired in the market found to have been cartelized during a period of antitrust law violation will be taken into consideration when issuing vines.

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