The legal regime of competition in Germany

AuthorOvidiu-Horia Maican
Pages280-293
The legal regime of competition in Germany
Lecturer Ovidiu-Horia MAICAN
1
Abstract
Antitrust law first came to Germany in 1947, while the building of an antitrust
framework was constitutive of the forming of the E uropean Coal and Steel Community
(ECSC) in 1951 the first step towards the creation of a European Community. However,
during the first ten years, these two developments remained only loosely coupled. After
1957, a year marked both by the passing of the first German antitrust act and the signing
of the Treaty of Rome, the German and European antitrust stories became much more
closely interconnected.
Keywords: federalism, competition, Germany, European Union.
JEL Classification: K22, K33
1. Introduction
The evolution of modern competition law is a process located at the in-
tersection of political, economic and social aspects.
Begining with the occupation period through the development of modern
German competition law to the regionalization of competition law within the Eu-
ropean Union, one can follow the various external influences at work in post-war
Germany and the importance of a local regulatory culture. In our days, competi-
tion law continues to evolve, responding to globalization's challenges with a va-
riety of transnational and regional mechanisms. So an example, recent years are
the witnesses of a sharp increase in legal instruments used to coordinate enforce-
ment efforts across national boundaries.
2. General aspects
When the Rome Treaty was signed, Germany was once the only member
state with a competition law regimeand even there it was only emerging. Today,
all member states have competition regimes, shaped and inspired, in one way or
another, via the European Community opposition regime.
At the beginning, the affect of American antitrust tradition and experi-
ence was once undeniable. The German postwar antitrust experience additionally
had some affect on the construction of a European competition regime. This Ger-
1
Ovidiu-Horia Maican Department of Law, Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Romania,
ovidiuszm@yahoo.com.

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