ECN Brief

Andreas Mundt, President of the Bundeskartellamt, re-elected by the International Competition Network

Bonn, 21 May 2019: At the 18th Annual Conference of the International Competition Network (ICN), the ICN Steering Group re-elected Andreas Mundt, President of the Bundeskartellamt, as Chair for the term 2019-2021.

Andreas Mundt, President of the German Bundeskartellamt: "The ICN will keep its focus on all areas of competition law enforcement including mergers, cartels, unilateral conduct and investigative process. Digital topics will remain on top of the agenda."

The 18th Annual Conference of the International Competition Network (ICN), hosted by the Superintendence of Industry and Commerce of Colombia (SIC), concluded on 17 May 2019. Nearly 500 participants from more than 80 jurisdictions, including representatives and stakeholders such as the business community, legal and economic professionals, international organisations and academics attended this year’s conference which started on Wednesday, 15 May 2019, in Cartagena, Colombia (press release of 17 May 2019).

The ICN is the most important network of competition authorities worldwide. It comprises 139 competition agencies from 126 jurisdictions. Andreas Mundt, President of the Bundeskartellamt, has been the ICN Steering Group Chair since September 2013.

Posted on 12/06/2019

European Consumer and Competition Day Conference, Bucharest, 4 April

The European Consumer and Competition Day conference was organized jointly by the Competition Council of Romania and the National Authority for Consumer Protection, under the auspices of the Romanian Presidency of the Council of the European Union, at the Palace of Parliament, in Bucharest, on 4 April 2019,.

The conference featured the key note speeches by Ms. Margrethe Vestager, the European Commissioner for Competition and Ms. Věra Jourová, the European Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality, who inspired the debates on real convergence towards a non-discriminatory access to resources and benefits across EU. These goals were perceived from a new angle of the digital age, showing how competition policy should promote variety, innovation and quality, in the interest of consumers.  

More than 300 representatives of the European Commission, the national competition authorities, authorities for consumer protection, consumer associations and academic environment attended the conference. The agenda mirrored the priorities of the Romanian Presidency’s work programme, related to competitiveness and connectivity, emphasizing, in particular, relevant topics of debate, such as digital economy from the perspective of competition and consumers, the transposition processes of the Directive ECN Plus and the New CPC Regulation, cartel settlements and policy enforcement across EU.

More information on the conference and the programme of the Romanian Presidency could be found here:
 
Posted on 15/04/2019

New call for proposals for training national judges in EU competition law

The Commission has published its call for proposals for training national judges in EU competition law. The purpose is to co-finance projects aimed at improving the knowledge, application and interpretation of EU competition law.

Priority topics include the application of Articles 101 and 102 TFEU, the Directive 2014/104 on antitrust damages actions, economic principles of competition law, state aid, competition law in regulated industries and digital markets. Preference will be given to projects offering training courses with consecutive levels, complementarity or an innovative approach compared to existing offers, and projects addressing judges from several member states in their training courses, thus encouraging cross-border networking.

For further information please visit this page:

http://ec.europa.eu/competition/calls/proposals_open.html  

The deadline for submitting the application is 15 April 2019

Posted on 25/01/2019

ECN+ Directive published in EU Official Journal

Directive (EU) 2019/1 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 December 2018 to empower the competition authorities of the Member States to be more effective enforcers and to ensure the proper functioning of the internal market has been published in the EU Official Journal. 

Member States have now until February 2021 to implement the Directive by ensuring national competition authorities enjoy the resources, independence and powers to enforce EU competition rules more effectively.

For more information, please visit this page.

 

 

Posted on 25/01/2019

Energy Monitoring Report 2018 published by the Bundesnetzagentur and the Bundeskartellamt

Jochen Homann: "Installed renewable energy capacity is greater than conventional energy capacity for the first time". Andreas Mundt: "The market concentration in conventional electricity generation declined further overall, but we still need to keep a close eye on developments"


Electricity generation and wholesale markets still in transition
"Renewable energy continues to expand. In 2017, there was more installed generating capacity from renewable than from conventional energy sources for the first time. The proportion of electricity generated from renewables continues to grow as well, reaching 36% of consumption last year," said Jochen Homann, Bundesnetzagentur President. Germany's total installed generating capacity increased by 5.8 GW to 217.6 GW, with 105.1 GW accounted for by conventional energy sources and 112.5 GW by renewables.
At 601.4 TWh, the level of electricity generation was the same as in 2016, with a disproportionate decrease in generation from non-renewable energy sources, particularly from hard coal-fired power plants. Renewable energies accounted for a total of 204.8 TWh. A large proportion (78%) of renewable energy is now sold directly on the market. Congestion led to 3% of renewable electricity being curtailed.

"The market concentration in conventional electricity generation declined again in 2017," explained Andreas Mundt, Bundeskartellamt President. "In particular, the combined market share of the largest electricity producers was down again on previous years. While that is a good thing for competition, it is still important for us to keep an eye on the market situation in Germany. The upcoming end to the use of nuclear power, the ongoing expansion of renewables and perhaps the redispatching markets are just a few of the many factors that could affect the future assessment of the state of competition."

Focus on retail markets and consumers

As with generation, the retail electricity and gas markets also showed a positive competitive development in 2017. "More competition means more choice for consumers and consequently cost benefits," said Mr Mundt. "The market share of the largest electricity suppliers for standard load profile and interval metered customers was down again on the previous year and, as for the two largest retail gas markets, was still considerably below the threshold where we presume a dominant position in the market."
As at 1 April 2018, the average electricity price for household customers was stable, at 29.88 ct/kWh (2017: 29.86 ct/kWh). The price stabilisation was partly due to the fact that network charges fell and surcharges were flat. "Average network charges for household customers fell in 2018 for the first time since 2011 and were down by almost 2% year-on-year," pointed out Mr Homann. "Competition plays an important role in how households can cope with rising electricity prices. People can often save a lot of money by changing electricity supplier. It is therefore difficult to understand why the switching rate for electricity customers stayed the same in 2017 and for gas contracts actually fell slightly," said Mr Homann and added, "The proportion of households on default supply contracts is falling steadily but still makes up around 28% of electricity customers."
Price comparison sites, which allow customers to compare electricity and gas tariffs and act as intermediaries, have become very important. "Nearly a quarter of household energy supply contracts are now concluded via comparison sites, so it is vital for consumers to be able to trust their reliability, objectivity and transparency," stressed Mr Mundt. In October 2017, therefore, the Bundeskartellamt's new Decision Division for Consumer Protection launched an inquiry into the comparison site sector, which includes those sites in the energy sector and aims to uncover and provide further detail about possible breaches of consumer protection law.
The number of households whose electricity supply was disconnected at the request of suppliers rose by about 13,600, while for gas the figure remained relatively stable with just a small increase of about 200 households.

The latest report and additional information (in German) are available on the Bundeskartellamt’s website.

Posted on 14/12/2018