Florian Huerkamp is a counsel at Herbert Smith Freehills based in their Düsseldorf office. He specialises in all aspects of EU and German competition law, with a focus on cartels (including follow-on litigation), merger control and abuse of dominance cases. He takes a particular interest in competition and regulatory issues and has advised on a broad range of energy related matters. Florian has represented clients in proceedings before the EU Commission, the Federal Cartel Office, the Federal Network Agency and in national courts. His sector focus covers regulated industries (such as energy), automotive, consumer products, agribusiness as well as general industries. As a former in-house counsel with Bayer AG Florian is very familiar with the specific demands and challenges companies face in complex transactions and proceedings. He was part of the in-house team that advised Bayer on the worldwide merger control process for its successful acquisition of Monsanto. He frequently holds lectures at the Institute for Antitrust Law in Düsseldorf and the University of Regensburg on a broad range of antitrust and other regulatory topics. His work has been published in the fields of competition, procurement, energy and constitutional law.
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Non-compete clauses that require a party to an agreement (or both parties in case of a reciprocal non-compete obligation) not to enter a market where it is currently not present are most common in M&A contracts for the sale of a business, where the seller undertakes not to compete with the (...)
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The German Parliament has passed the 11th reform of the German Act against restraints of competition (ARC). The reform will take effect soon and has three major components: The Federal Cartel Office (FCO) is granted the power to implement behavioural or structural measures if a market (...)
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On 1 June 2023 the European Commission adopted its revised guidelines on horizontal cooperation agreements (Guidelines) together with its revised horizontal block exemption Regulations on R&D and Specialisation Agreements. For an overview of the revised Guidelines see our blog post here. (...)
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In a recently published judgment, the Higher General Court of Düsseldorf has objected to the interpretation of the transaction value threshold under the German merger control regime by the Federal Cartel Office (Judgment of 23 November 2022 – Kart 11/21 (V)). The judgment provides helpful (...)
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Facts of the case In December 2019, the Federal Cartel Office ("FCO") fined eleven technical building service providers approximately €110m for participation in a bid rigging cartel. The FCO’s investigation was initiated in November 2014 following a leniency application. According to the FCO, (...)
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Following a comprehensive review and consultation process, the new revised EU vertical agreements block exemption Regulation (VBER) and Guidelines have now been published and will come into force on 1 June 2022. The Commission’s stated objectives of the review process were to adjust the safe (...)
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On 1 March 2022 the EU Commission published, for consultation, its draft revised rules on horizontal cooperation agreements. The rules consist of two horizontal block exemption Regulations (covering Research & Development agreements and Specialisation agreements) and Guidelines on the (...)
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The German Federal Cartel Office (FCO) has published new guidelines on its leniency programme and on the setting of fines in cartel proceedings. Unfortunately, both guidelines are so far available only in German. The previous guidelines date from 2006 and 2013 respectively. The FCO has now (...)
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Last week the Higher Regional Court of Düsseldorf overturned a decision adopted by the German Federal Cartel Office (FCO) clearing a JV between Telekom Deutschland and EWE, a regional utility company. The JV partners were looking to cooperate in the development of fibre-optic networks in parts (...)
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On 23 July 2021 the CMA published the report of its market study into the electric vehicle (EV) charging sector, in which it sets out a range of measures in order to ensure that a comprehensive and competitive national network of EV charge points is in place ahead of the 2030 ban on new petrol (...)
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On 9 July 2021, following a comprehensive consultation process, the EU Commission (Commission) published its proposals for a revised Vertical Block Exemption Regulation (Draft VBER) and Draft Vertical Guidelines, due to replace the current regime which expires on 31 May 2022. The previous (...)
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The Munich Regional Court has granted an injunction based on Article 101 TFEU against an arrangement between Google and the German Ministry of Health . The Ministry operates a national online platform (“Gesund.bund.de”) providing information on health, including a short description of common (...)
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Today, the German parliament passed the “Digital Competition Act” which is the 10th amendment to the Act against Restraints of Competition (ARC). The amended law – which will very likely enter into force January 2021 – will bring about significant changes to the German competition law (...)
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At the end of January 2021, the revised Act against Restraints on Competition ("ARC") entered into force. Most attention has focused on the new powers bestowed upon the Federal Cartel Office ("FCO") to investigate the likes of Google, Amazon and Facebook. However, the revised ARC also contains (...)
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The German FCO has not lost its appetite to take on major tech companies. Today, it has announced that it has initiated abuse proceedings against Facebook to examine the linkage between Oculus virtual reality products and Facebooks’ social network. The accusations against Facebook (...)
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On 16 October 2019, the EU Commission ("the Commission") adopted interim measures against Broadcom in connection with its ongoing investigation into the company for abuse of a dominant position. The investigation started in June 2019 when the Commission opened an antitrust investigation to (...)
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On 14 May 2019, the EU Commission ("the Commission") announced that it has opened a formal antitrust investigation into Insurance Ireland, an association of insurance companies active in Ireland ("Investigation"). The association administers a database (Insurance Link), to which its member (...)
