Stephan Polster is a partner at Becker Günther Polster Rechtsanwälte. He is an expert in EU law and, in particular, competition and antitrust law. His fields of activity also include M&A, telecoms, and energy law. He has represented the largest Austrian electricity producer in its merger with five regional electricity suppliers in the merger control proceedings before the European Commission. He also advises domestic and foreign clients in major acquisitions, with a focus on the energy sector, both in the context of corporate and merger control law. Prior to joining DORDA BRUGGER JORDIS in 1996, he has worked as a trainee at DG XIII (Telecoms) of the EU Commission, and as an associate in the Brussels office of a US law firm. Stephan Polster is recommended for his expertise in competition law by the renowned international handbooks "The Legal 500", "Chambers Global", "PLC Which Lawyer" and "European Legal Experts"... Stephan graduated from the University of Vienna (Mag iur and Dr iur) and the University of Wolverhampton, Great Britain (MA). He wrote his doctoral thesis on Telecommunications Law of the European Community. He is co-author of the leading commentary to the new Austrian Telecommunications Act 2003 (2004) and of "Cash Pooling - Praxis, Recht, Steuern" (Cash Pooling - Practice, law, taxes, 2nd edition 2004, 1st edition 2002). He has published numerous articles on competition law, telecommunications law, energy law and corporate law in Austrian and international journals. He also holds specialised seminars and speaks at international law conferences.
2283
1. Background On 14 December 2007, the Austrian Cartel Court imposed a record fine amounting to EUR 75.4 million in total against five suppliers of elevators and escalators after proceedings have been initiated by a leniency application before the Austrian Federal Competition Authority (...)
2463
Introduction On 11 July 2008, the Federal Competition Authority ("Bundeswettbewerbsbehörde" ; hereinafter referred to as FCA) published its first interim report on fuel prices in Austria with special regard to alleged concerted practices of well-established multi-national oil companies (OMV, (...)
3928
Background In three famous decisions the European Commission decided that the central marketing of the media rights of the Football Premier League may give rise to horizontal and vertical competition concerns.. Particularly, the Commission stressed that media rights should be awarded (...)
3000
Background In 1999 Moser Holding (the publisher of the Tyrolean daily newspaper "Tiroler Tageszeitung") filed an application pursuant to sec. 35 Austrian Cartel Act 1988 before the Austrian Cartel Court, alleging its competitor Mediaprint (the publisher of national daily newspapers "Krone" (...)
4979
Background On 5 October, 2007, the Austrian Federal Competition Authority ("BWB") announced that it had applied before the Austrian Cartel Court for fines amounting to EUR 88 million against five companies active in the elevator and escalator industry. After in-depth investigations by the (...)
4929
Regional Civil Court of Graz as Appellate Court, 17 August 2007, Case n° 17 R 91/07p, "Grazer Fahrschulen", not yet published Background For several years the Austrian Federal Chamber of Workers and Employees ("AK") has closely monitored prices of driving schools in different regions of (...)
4643
1. Background The Austrian Supreme Court (acting as the highest appellate court in competition mat-ters) upheld a first instance decision of the Austrian Cartel Court (13 June 2006, 27 Kt 83/04, 27 Kt 18, 193/04 ; See Axel Reidlinger and Heinrich Kühnert, The Austrian Cartel Court finds (...)
3086
Background The Austrian Supreme Court (acting as the highest appellate court in competition matters) upheld a decision of the Austrian Cartel Court, by which the latter declared a fee structure (in the following the "Fee Structure") of the Austrian trade association of builders as infringing (...)
