{"id":2853,"date":"2019-10-14T21:07:59","date_gmt":"2019-10-14T19:07:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.d-kart.de\/?p=2853"},"modified":"2019-11-15T15:31:22","modified_gmt":"2019-11-15T14:31:22","slug":"der-referentenentwurf-zum-gwb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.d-kart.de\/en\/blog\/2019\/10\/14\/der-referentenentwurf-zum-gwb\/","title":{"rendered":"The draft bill of the German competition act"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Today, D’Kart documents the draft bill of the German competition act, the Gesetz gegen Wettbewerbsbeschr\u00e4nkungen (GWB). As a small service for our loyal readers, we have also compiled a consolidated version of particularly important rules in German and English.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

D’Kart\npublishes the version of the draft of 7 October 2019, 18:14 – both documents, the draft bill as well\nas the partial version with consolidation and translation are of course\nprovided without any guarantee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


The occasion: ECN+<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The draft bill heralds the 10th GWB amendment. Officially the work is called \u201cGWB-digitization law\u201d, a title, which, from our point of view, is far inferior to a proposal chosen in our blog here with 7 W-words in German\u2026 after all, it is not the GWB that is being digitized, but — let’s leave it at that. Content matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Large parts\nof the bill implement the ECN+\nDirective<\/a>. As of \u00a7 48 GWB, virtually no letter remains in its place,\neven if the changes in content are not substantial everywhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Abuse, merger control, damages, proceedings<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The changes\nin abusive practices law, merger control and damage claims are awaited with\ngreater excitement. The latter, regarding damage claims, are rather smallish.\nIn merger control, the second domestic turnover threshold has been raised from\nEUR 5 million to EUR 10 million, making the \u201cAnschlussklausel\u201d obsolete. The minor-markets\nclause (Bagatellmarktklausel) will also be adapted. There is no new rule\nagainst the acquisition of potential competitors (killer acquisitions).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bill contains its true treasures in the field of abuse. There is a new \u00a7 19a as well as strong adaptations in \u00a7\u00a7 18, 19 and 20. Some of the new rules can be traced back to the study on abusive practices<\/a>, prepared for the Ministry of Economics. Among other things, new rules for intermediaries, access to data and companies with “paramount significance across markets” are established.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rules\nwill be supplemented by changes in procedural law: the threshold for interim\nmeasures will be lowered and there will be a right to a “comfort letter”\nby the Bundeskartellamt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\n“big miss” is consumer protection by a consumer agency, namely the\nBundeskartellamt. Those in favor of granting jurisdiction to the agency for\ncases of unfair commercial practices have not yet gained a majority in government.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Comments, please!<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Good news is that the draft bill – as it stands – is free of privileges for specific sectors (apart from the press publishers). As is well known, it is a constant nuisance with reforms of competition law that special exceptions are accommodated here and there. It is important to remain vigilant in the parliamentary process regarding this point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, here they are, the two documents, the draft bill (in German) and our little helping sheet:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

GWB-Digitalisierungsgesetz-Fassung-Ressortabstimmung<\/a>Herunterladen<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n
RefE GWB10 dt engl \u00dcbersicht 2019-11-15<\/a>Herunterladen<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n\n

*** Please note that we corrected a few mistakes in our synopsis\/translation after the first publication. Please use the new version (online now). Sorry for any incoveniences! *** <\/p>\n\n\n\n

*** On 15 November 2019 we changed the translation of section 19a (2) No. 3 (only English version) upon suggestion by a reader. Thank you for that suggestion! ***<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next steps are a vote by the government to start the legislative process, and it may take some time (and possibly some changes to this draft) before there is a final new law enacted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Does Germany take the right direction? Is it good stuff in the nitty-gritty details? The specialists in our community are called to comment – may #GWB10 be a success for the competition. You are welcome to comment and encouraged to place your comments below this posting! On 29 October 2019, the draft will be presented and discussed by three co-authors at the Forum Unternehmensrecht<\/a> in D\u00fcsseldorf – you should not miss this either. But first of all have fun<\/a> reading! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today, D’Kart documents the draft bill of the German competition act, the Gesetz gegen Wettbewerbsbeschr\u00e4nkungen (GWB). As a small service for our loyal readers, we have also compiled a consolidated version of particularly important rules in German and English. D’Kart publishes the version of the draft of 7 October 2019, 18:14 – both documents, the draft bill as well as the partial version with consolidation and translation are of course provided without any guarantee. The occasion: ECN+ The draft bill…<\/p>\n

Read More Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":2854,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3],"class_list":["post-2853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-allgemein","tag-gwb-novelle"],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.0","language":"en","enabled_languages":["de","en"],"languages":{"de":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"en":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.d-kart.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.d-kart.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.d-kart.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.d-kart.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.d-kart.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2853"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.d-kart.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2853\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3023,"href":"https:\/\/www.d-kart.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2853\/revisions\/3023"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.d-kart.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.d-kart.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.d-kart.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.d-kart.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}