{"id":4044,"date":"2020-09-15T16:51:21","date_gmt":"2020-09-15T14:51:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.d-kart.de\/?p=4044"},"modified":"2020-09-15T18:04:54","modified_gmt":"2020-09-15T16:04:54","slug":"ssnippets-40-european-competition-days","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.d-kart.de\/en\/blog\/2020\/09\/15\/ssnippets-40-european-competition-days\/","title":{"rendered":"SSNIPpets (40): European Competition Days"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On some days the antitrust lawyer does not know where to look first, so much is happening. Rupprecht Podszun has no other choice. Without claiming to be complete, correct or chucklesome, he has noted down what he noticed recently in the wonderful world of competition. Here are his SSNIPpets – small but significant news, information and pleasantries \u2013 our pet project!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jubilee Line<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Is this a good day to send SSNIPpets? 60 years ago, OPEC, the infamous cartel of oil-exporting countries<\/a>, was founded at the Baghdad Oil Conference. A German radio programme (or as we call it now: Podcast), ZeitZeichen on WDR<\/a> took the anniversary to grant 15 minutes of fame to OPEC. And I learned that this cartel was formed to counterbalance the cartel of the “Seven Sisters”! The Seven Sisters were the oil companies that exploited the oil countries by – it is reported – agreeing their strategies in sleepy Scottish villages \u201cregardless of the antitrust law\u201d, as the eternal Saudi oil minister Ahmed Zaki Yamani indignantly says on record. \u201cThe oil companies acted like a state within the state\u201d, says Zamani.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And now to the platform economy (without wanting to be guilty of the ostracized analogy of \u201cdata is the new oil\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next level competition law<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The new German antitrust law is supposed to become a kind of “next-level competition law”, and now it has also reached the next level in a truly arduous legislative process. Almost eight months after the draft bill was officially presented by the Ministry for Economics, and about a year after we leaked it here at D’Kart<\/a>, it was turned into a “government draft”. This means that now the entire Merkel government is supporting this draft. This even holds true for the Minister of Justice. That is not a surprise regarding substance, yet this Ministry, led by a Social Democrat (SPD), had taken the act hostage for pushing through legislation that was opposed by the Ministries led by Christian Democrats (CDU). This was all the more grotesque because the rules in #GWB10 come close to the demands of the SPD<\/a> in its great<\/s> not-so-small times when its leader called for strict Anti-Google-policies. Lucky you if you live in a country with no coalition government. Eh, wait, I take that last sentence back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Left the Chancellory, now on its way to Parliament… the German reform bill.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Who pays the piper\u2026<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The draft should now go through Parliament with as few casualties as possible (in my view). Lobbying activities are beginning to take off, the GAFAs are reported to have woken up and are swarming out to the members of parliament to talk them out of such vulgarities as \u00a7 19a GWB-E, a sort of ex-ante-regulatory competition tool for digital gatekeepers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It would be nice if the rules of decency were respected when lobbying is used. Just one example: A leading German newspaper, FAZ, recently published an op-ed by a professor claiming that said section 19a of the draft was probably unconstitutional. It was not disclosed that the professor had produced a 44-pages-expert opinion for Amazon in this matter. The FAZ piece was just the condensed version. I am pretty sure that he did not volunteer for Amazon just for free (or say in exchange for some data). The FAZ editors had, I assume, no idea about this secondary use of the commissioned piece. By today’s standards in academia, non-disclosure of such a bias is a gross foul. Incidentally, these standards gained prominence in antitrust law after the GAFAs in the USA had bought academics on a large scale. I hear the tobacco industry coughing somewhere<\/s> sending its regards!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New in the government draft<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

On substance: The government draft, which you can download here<\/a>, contains a number of new issues compared with the drafts known so far:<\/p>\n\n\n\n