TRANSCRIPT - What's in the water in Germany?

This is the edited transcript of the Competition Lore podcast episode 16, "What's in the water in Germany"?, with Professor Rupprecht Podzun.

You can purchase a PDF download of the complete transcript of this podcast for US$10.

The German legislature and competition agency are on the front foot in shoring up antitrust laws and taking action to deal with the challenges raised by a digital economy.

Merger notification rules have been amended to ensure that acquisitions of small but significant competitors by the tech giants do not fall through the net.

The Bundeskartellamt is engaged in a controversial investigation of Facebook’s data collection practices.

And a raft of new regulation for platforms is on the drawing board, as well as potentially far-reaching changes to abuse of dominance laws to deal with intermediation power and market tipping.

In this episode of Competition Lore, Professor Rupprecht Podszun of the Heinrich Heine Universitat Dusseldorf explains these developments, what’s behind them and why they are likely to be influential across Europe. Industrial policy, politics and the philosophical underpinnings of German competition law all feature in the fascinating discussion.