GERMANY Trends and Developments Contributed by: Andreas Rosenfeld and Sebastian Steinbarth, Redeker Sellner Dahs
Redeker Sellner Dahs Willy-Brandt-Allee 11 53113 Bonn Germany Tel: +49 228 72625 0 Fax: +49 228 72625 99 Email: rosenfeld@redeker.de Web: www.redeker.de
Overview After some years of declining numbers of merger notifications, 2024 saw an increase compared to previous years. This trend is ongoing in 2025. Andreas Mundt, President of the German Bun- deskartellamt (Federal Cartel Office – FCO), emphasises regularly that merger control is and will remain the most important tool to maintain a competitive environment and European com - petitiveness as a whole. In particular, the FCO is placing increasing importance on the trans - action value threshold to control “killer acquisi - tions”. In parallel to that, the FCO is testing out the new powers available to it after the comple - tion of sector inquiries. Germany’s new federal government on the other hand is yet to show its intentions in competition policy. Merger Review by the FCO In 2024, 870 transactions were notified to the FCO. This is a significant increase from around 800 notifications in 2023 and might mark a turnaround in the declining number in notified transactions since the turnover thresholds were adjusted in January 2021. By means of the adjustment, both domestic turnover thresholds were increased significantly from EUR25 million to EUR50 million and from
EUR5 million to EUR17.5 million (the worldwide turnover threshold of EUR500 million of all the undertakings concerned remained unchanged). As a consequence, the total number of notifica - tions to the FCO declined significantly in 2022 and 2023. Whereas the average number of notifi - cations per year amounted to 1,300 notifications in the period 2019–2020, it dropped to an aver - age of 867 in the period 2021–2023, which cor - responds to a decrease of approximately 33%. According to the FCO, the decline could not be attributed solely to the statutory increase of the merger control thresholds, but there were also other reasons for the downward trend (eg, the pandemic and the war in Ukraine). Whether last year’s rising figures represent a longer-term trend reversal might depend cru - cially on the effects and developments of the US tariffs policy. In addition to potential damp - ening effects of the threatened tariffs on the German economy, the significant slowdown in international M&A activity particularly in the US might have a significant impact on the number of merger control notifications in Germany. The duration of Phase I proceedings is generally less than the permitted period of one month and
234 CHAMBERS.COM
Powered by FlippingBook