The Facebook Case

The Facebook Case

The Bundeskartellamt’s proceedings against Facebook – internationally known as “the Facebook (Germany) case” – is one of the most important and exciting antitrust proceedings in recent history. The law of abuse of a dominant market position (abuse of conditions, exploitative abuse, exclusionary abuse) comes into play here in a fundamental way – market definition, market power analysis, concept of abuse and numerous detailed questions are affected. The border areas to other legal topics – especially data protection – are explored. The case is also exciting from a procedural and institutional perspective – with numerous twists and turns between the Federal Cartel Office, the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court and the Federal Supreme Court. The media coverage is unparalleled in antitrust law. And last but not least, the legislators reacted to the case during the proceedings with the GWB Digitisation Act (10th GWB amendment) and the draft Digital Markets Act (EU Commission).


In a project at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Prof. Dr. Rupprecht Podszun worked on the case with students in the winter semester 2020/2021. On these pages you will find the numerous information and materials that were compiled and created for this purpose. The site is a work in progress and will continue to compile the materials. We are grateful for any comments.


The following students were involved in the project:

Torben Bastians, Chrissa Borodimou, Anton Butuzov, Lina Dyvak, Marius Engelmann, Julian Franke, Sophia Gröf, Johann Henke, Kerstin Hermsen, Jonathan Horst, Leah Kemp, Jan Köster, Tom Linge, Julia Linnartz, Melanie Lunemann, Murat Oktay, Sören Olfen, Lisa Pawlak, Melina Rytir, Sarah Saleh, Alexander Schauenburg, Lioba Schmitz, Lena-Sophie Siewert, Jan Sohn, Kübra Teknetas und Magnus Wegmann.

PLEASE TURN TO THE GERMAN PAGE TO ACCESS THE POSTINGS, THANK YOU!