Germany agrees reforms to give competition watchdog more power

Germany’s ruling coalition agreed to reform the country’s antitrust law, giving more power to the cartel office which will allow the watchdog to look at market disruptions in addition to individual companies, the coalition parties said in a joint statement on Monday.

The reforms will make it easier for the Bonn-based office to take action when prices jump for no reason and to claw back profit resulting from antitrust violation, Greens lawmaker Andreas Audretsch said in the statement.

“Smaller economic players in particular will be better protected in the future if competition is disrupted,” Verena Hubertz, deputy chairwoman of the Social Democrats parliamentary group said.

Germany’s Economy Ministry has been pushing to allow the antitrust watchdog to break up corporations in extreme cases of violations, but the critics have challenged the move, saying this would give the office a blank check in market interventions.

The pro-business FDP party said the reforms will allow antitrust enforcement to be suspended pending a court review if companies object to cartel office measures.

“In addition, the importance and behaviour of a company in a market is a condition for competition interventions by the Cartel Office,” FDP lawmaker Lukas Koehler said.

via REuters