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ARTICLE · 30 OCTOBER 2012

Newsletter Antitrust Law: No Avoidance Of Liability By Verbal Agreements

Oppenhoff
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Lately, more and more violations of the ban on vertical price fixing have been prosecuted by the German Federal Cartel Office (FCO).

GermanyAntitrust/Competition Law
Daniel Dohrn
Daniel Dohrn
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Lately, more and more violations of the ban on vertical price fixing have been prosecuted by the German Federal Cartel Office (FCO). As a recent case from August 2012 shows, the existence of a price maintenance system violating antitrust law can be proven even without any documentary evidence, so that a fine can be imposed on the company retaining the system. Since normally a lot of persons are involved in such a system, companies should not neglect the risk of its price fixing practice being detected by the antitrust authority, even if there are no written documents recording it.

Setting of fines in respect to the ban on vertical price fixing

In the recent years the FCO has been pursuing an extremely robust line on the prosecution of price maintenance systems violating antitrust law.

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