On November 7, 2023, the act amending the German Act Against Restraints of Competition (ARC) entered into force. This is the 11th such amendment since the ARC’s inception in 1958 (11th ARC Amendment). It received final approval from the German parliament (Deutscher Bundestag) on July 6, 2023 and from the German Federal Council (Deutscher Bundesrat) on September 29, 2023.

The 11th ARC Amendment expands the enforcement powers of the German Federal Cartel Office (FCO). Its centerpiece is the introduction of a new competence for the FCO to counteract considerable and continuous competition disturbances. To this end, the FCO may now impose, even on undertakings that have been fully compliant with all competition laws, behavioral or structural remedies that may as a last resort even include the breaking up of companies.

In addition, the 11th ARC Amendment expands the FCO’s powers to lower the merger control notification thresholds for individual companies. Moreover, it strengthens the FCO’s sector inquiries, for example, by making them a mandatory prerequisite both for decisions applying the aforementioned new competence and for decisions lowering the merger control thresholds for individual companies. Furthermore, the 11th ARC Amendment facilitates the disgorgement of economic benefits resulting from violations of competition law, and it designates the FCO as the German national authority for the purposes of the EU Digital Markets Act. 

For an in-depth analysis of the 11th ARC Amendment, we refer to our previous client alert dated July 10, 2023.