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Legal Advice

Antitrust law

An­ti­trust law af­fects all com­pa­nies: in re­cent de­ca­des, al­most every in­dus­try has been sub­ject to in­ves­ti­ga­ti­ons by com­pe­ti­tion aut­ho­ri­ties and were ul­ti­mately ex­po­sed to fi­nes, some of which were se­vere. Af­fec­ted by the fi­nes were small and me­dium-si­zed en­ter­pri­ses as well as in­ter­na­tio­nal cor­po­ra­ti­ons.

In ad­di­tion to the li­mi­ta­ti­ons it sets for ho­ri­zon­tal and ver­ti­cal agree­ments, an­ti­trust law also of­fers scope for coope­ra­tion bet­ween com­pe­ti­tors and along the va­lue chain.

The aim of an­ti­trust law is to keep mar­kets open and to create the ne­cessary frame­work con­di­ti­ons for di­ver­sity, qua­lity, in­no­va­tion and mar­ket-ori­en­ted pri­ces for the be­ne­fit of con­su­mers. In doing so, an­ti­trust law draws a line bet­ween coope­ra­tion that is to be as­ses­sed po­si­tively and in­ad­mis­si­ble agree­ments, the ex­act course of which must be de­ter­mi­ned in each in­di­vi­dual case and al­ways with re­fe­rence to the re­le­vant mar­ket in each case. It also pre­vents the abuse of a do­mi­nant mar­ket po­si­tion.

In line with Eb­ner Stolz's ge­ne­ral ad­vi­sory ap­proach, we ad­vise com­pa­nies of all si­zes and from all sec­tors on the pre­ven­tive and crea­tive struc­tu­ring of supply re­la­ti­ons­hips, coope­ra­ti­ons with com­pe­ti­tors and ver­ti­cal coope­ra­ti­ons in com­pli­ance with an­ti­trust law. If you are a fi­nan­cial in­ves­tor or stra­te­gic in­ves­tor plan­ning to take over ano­ther com­pany, we will as­sist from the struc­tu­ring of the ex­change of in­for­ma­tion wi­thin the frame­work of a bid­ding or due di­li­gence pro­cess to the no­ti­fi­ca­tion and cle­arance of the mer­ger with or by the com­pe­tent com­pe­ti­tion aut­ho­ri­ties.

Our services at a glance

  • Ad­vi­sing com­pa­nies on an­ti­trust com­pli­ance in all busi­ness ac­tivi­ties
    • Struc­tu­ring of coope­ra­tion agree­ments and joint ven­tures, dis­tri­bu­tion sys­tems, li­cen­sing and other agree­ments
    • Struc­tu­ring and im­ple­men­ta­tion of sett­le­ment of terms and con­di­ti­ons and best va­lue agree­ments in com­pli­ance with the an­ti­trust frame­work to­ge­ther with our au­di­tors
    • Plan­ning and im­ple­men­ta­tion of com­pli­ance trai­ning as well as in­tro­duc­tion and re­view - in coope­ra­tion with our au­di­tors - of com­pli­ance ma­nage­ment pro­gram­mes
  • Ac­com­pany­ing cor­po­rate tran­sac­tions
    • Con­duc­ting due di­li­gence and struc­tu­ring bid­ding pro­ces­ses, in­clu­ding clean team agree­ments and black box pro­ce­du­res
    • Plan­ning and sup­port of mer­ger con­trol pro­cee­dings be­fore the com­pe­tent com­pe­ti­tion aut­ho­ri­ties

 

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