German Federal Cartel Office ("FCO") Publishes "Self-Cleaning" Guidelines

On 25.11.2021, the FCO published its “self-cleaning” guidelines, specifying the conditions under which companies that have been found by a binding and final decision to have engaged in unlawful conduct (e.g. cartel agreements, bribery, money laundering, tax evasion etc.) and have therefore been “blacklisted” in the country's national Competition Register (excluding them from public tenders) can request to be delisted. To do so, the company must file an application with the FCO as the registering authority, in which it first proves that it intends to participate in public tenders and therefore has an interest in early deletion from the competition register (the statutory deadline for deletion is 3-5 years). Secondly, the company must fulfil the following three substantive requirements and set out the precise facts and evidence in the application (see the FCO's press release for details which can be found here):