World of Metallurgy ERZMETALL 68 2015 No 3186 Walter Frenz Professional Exchange During Conferences Infringements of Competition Law 1 Approach Natural competition is thus characterised by the circum stance that every undertaking is required to act with a lack of knowledge of the business and pricing strategies of its competitors Agreements to exchange such information distort competition as they eliminate uncertainty on the part of other undertakings and thus enable mutual coordi nation of business and pricing strategies to the detriment of consumers who are potentially faced with artificially high prices The same applies in the case of coordinated practices based on an exchange of information this the most effective means of this type of conduct 1 This close connection between an exchange of information and the coordination of business strategy makes the mere 1 Translated by Craig Aird and Johanna Otting Emmerich in Immenga Mestmäcker Vol 1 1 Article 101 1 TFEU marginal no 96 Professional Exchange During Conferences Infringements of Competition Law Walter Frenz Informationsaustausch während Konferenzen kartellrechtswidrig Échange d informations pendant des conférences pratique contraire au droit des cartels Intercambio de informaciones durante conferencias prácticas concertadas contrarias al Derecho de la competencia Paper to be presented as a Plenary Lecture on the occasion of the European Metallurgical Conference EMC 2015 June 14 to 17 2015 in Düsseldorf Germany Representatives of various companies operating within the same sector visit the same conferences and meet for a professional exchange about the discussed issues Of course they also talk during the breaks as well as in bars in the evening The exact discussions are not protocoled May there result infringements of competition law from a con certed practice because the EU commission or the Federal Cartel Office assume that at the meetings there has been exchanged information which constitute an infringement of competition law This does not mean an exclusion of participating in such expert conferences It is just necessary to comply with some rules Keywords Competition Law Conference meetings Conference presentations and discussions Exchange of information An Konferenzen nehmen vielfach Vertreter verschiedener Unternehmen derselben Branche teil und kommen dort zum Fachaustausch über die behandelten Themen zusam men Selbstverständlich unterhalten sie sich auch in den Pausen sowie abends an der Bar Was dort genau gespro chen wird ist nicht protokolliert Können sich daraus Wett bewerbsverstöße aus einer abgestimmten Verhaltensweise ergeben weil die EU Kommission oder das Bundeskar tellamt annimmt bei diesen Treffen seien unerlaubt Infor mationen ausgetauscht worden die einen Wettbewerbs verstoß konstituieren Damit ist freilich die Teilnahme an solchen Konferenzen nicht ausgeschlossen Es müssen nur bestimmte Regeln eingehalten werden Schlüsselwörter Kartellrecht Treffen auf Konferenzen Konferenzvor träge und diskussionen Informationsaustausch von Un ternehmen mutual exchange of information appear to be problemat ic even in the case of information that is not inherently confidential because it is either publicly available relates to the past or is merely statistical in nature This applies in any event if the exchange of information accompanies other anti competitive actions such as setting prices in parallel The exchange of information likewise permits better moni toring of whether other agreements have been observed 2 However the deliberate exchange of information as such already results in contact between two undertakings that otherwise acted without any closer contact 3 This leads to a risk of coordination which extends beyond sharing in 2 ECJ Case C 204 inter alia 00 P ECR 2004 I 123 marginal no 281 Aalborg Portland 3 See Heyers NZKart 2013 99 101 regarding OLG Düsseldorf rul ing of 29 10 2012 V 1 Kart 1 6 12 Owi et al marginal no 33 37 41 44 et seq

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