The Federal Cartel Office has imposed significantly more fines this year on account of prohibited cartel agreements: the agency said that the total was 848 million euros. In 2018 it was 376 million euros, and significantly less in the previous years.
However, no clear trend can be derived from this, because in the past the value was already higher: in 2014, the authority paid companies one billion euros to pay.
Cartel agreements are generally prohibited. They inhibit competition and increase prices. "We are investing a lot of resources in cartel prosecution," said head of agency Andreas Mundt. "Cartels harm the economy and consumers through artificially inflated prices, poorer quality and stunted innovation."
16 companies testified as crown witnesses
The Bundeskartellamt intervened this year, for example, because of agreements in the bicycle wholesale business, with the purchase of car steel and with the steel production. There were five searches across a total of 32 companies. The fines were directed against 23 companies and associations as well as 12 natural persons.
However, some companies had registered and testified as leniencies. 16 companies therefore either had to pay nothing or only relatively little. Leniencies are a key source of information for the agency to take action against the cartels.
Another area of responsibility for competition keepers is merger control. Four of the 1,400 registered projects were prohibited from merging. For example, the waste giant Remondis was not allowed to buy the Cologne-based company DSD, which organizes the collection and recycling of packaging under the brand name Grüner Punkt. From the authority's point of view, Remondis' market power would have been too great after the takeover of the Green Dot.