Biennial Report XXIV: Competition 2022
Biennial Report of the Monopolies Commission under § 44(1) ARC, July 05, 2022
Monopolies Commission: The ecological-digital transformation will only succeed with a strong competition regime
In its Biennial Report "Competition 2022", the Monopolies Commission makes recommendations on how an adaptation of the competition regime can contribute to the ecological-digital transformation. Today, it presented its report to the Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, Dr. Robert Habeck.
The Chairman of the Monopolies Commission, Prof. Dr. Jürgen Kühling, LL.M.: "The competition regime in Germany is an important pillar for coping with the upcoming transformation processes. At the same time, it ensures that market power which arises in the course of digitalisation and increase in concentration in individual sectors is limited. The Monopolies Commission also takes a fundamentally positive view of the most recent considerations of the Ministry for Economic Affairs on a tightening of antitrust law. It already analysed the possibility of an abuse-independent unbundling in 2010 and presented recommendations for the requirements of such an instrument, but also pointed out its limits."
Prof. Dr. Tomaso Duso new member of the Monopolies Commission, terms of Dr. Thomas Nöcker and Prof. Achim Wambach Ph.D. end
Berlin/Bonn, June 30, 2022
The German government has appointed Prof. Dr. Tomaso Duso as a member of the Monopolies Commission for a term from 1 July 2022 to 30 June 2026.
New Commission member Tomaso Duso has been Head of the Firms and Markets Department at the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin) since 2013 and a professor of empirical industrial economics at the Technische Universität (TU) Berlin since 2018. From 2011 to 2018, he was a university professor at the Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE) at the Heinrich-Heine-Universität (HHU) Düsseldorf. He is spokesperson of the Berlin Centre for Consumer Policies (BCCP) and a Research Fellow for the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) and the Centre for Economic Studies (CESIfo) as well as a member of the Economic Advisory Group on Competition Policy (EAGCP) of the European Commission. His research focuses on applied econometrics in the fields of industrial organization, competition policy, regulation and management.
Prof. Dr. Tomaso Duso succeeds Prof. Achim Wambach Ph.D. who will retire from the Commission after two terms on 30 June 2022. Prof. Wambach was a member of the Monopolies Commission from July 2014 to June 2022 and its Chairman from March 2016 to September 2020. Also on 30 June 2022, Dr. Thomas Nöcker will retire from the Commission after three terms. Dr. Nöcker was a member of the Monopolies Commission from July 2010 to June 2022. The German government has not yet decided on his successor.
Important topics of the Monopolies Commission during the memberships of Thomas Nöcker and Achim Wambach were the abuse control of platform companies, the further development of the analysis of company concentration with a view to institutional investors and cross-sectoral indicators of market power as well as distortions of competition in international trade due to subsidies to state and private companies in China. In addition, the Monopolies Commission's opinions on the health care markets are to be mentioned, in particular the Special Report on the development of competition in the German health insurance system and the current Special Report on the reorganisation of hospital care. The Monopolies Commission would like to express its special thanks to Dr. Nöcker and Prof. Wambach for their commitment to competition.
Hospital care post Covid-19: Reorganizing Competition, Planning and Financing
Special Report of the Monopolies Commission, May 30, 2022
- The tasks of hospital planning in the federal states should be focused more clearly and effectively on ensuring the provision of care.
- The German dual hospital finance system should be restructured. The Monopolies Commission suggests a further development of the hospital flat-rate payment as well as the introduction of a provision surcharge that can be controlled by the federal states.
- Patients should be given better opportunities to compare the quality of medical care provided by hospitals.
