New competition register at Bundeskartellamt - Launch of establishment team

23.10.2017

On 29 July 2017 the Act on the Establishment of a Competition Register for Public Procurement at the Bundeskartellamt entered into force. The Bundeskartellamt has now launched an establishment team to set up the new division.

Andreas Mundt, President of the Bundeskartellamt: "Companies which commit serious economic offences should not benefit from public contracts and concessions. The Competition Register will enable contracting authorities to check in a single nationwide electronic search whether a company has committed relevant violations of law. Therefore the register can play an important role in combating economic crime and competition law violations. With this new transparency I expect the competition register to also significantly increase the preventive effect of criminal and competition law. The Act intends that our new division and the electronic register are to be operational in 2020."

The Act contains an exhaustive list of the criminal and administrative offences leading to the entry of a company in the register. These include final convictions, penal orders or final fine decisions for offences which under Section 123(1) and (4) of the German Competition Act (GWB) are compulsory grounds for the exclusion of a company from public award procedures (especially bribery, human trafficking, formation of a criminal organisation, terrorist financing, money laundering, withholding of social security contributions, tax evasion).

Secondly, facultative grounds for the exclusion of a company from public award procedures stated in Section 124 GWB (violations of competition law and certain labour law provisions) will be recorded, information which until now the contracting authorities were able to obtain from the Central Trade and Industry Register. Data recorded in the Competition Register can only be requested by public contracting authorities for the purpose of award procedures. The register is not accessible to the general public.

Companies listed are to be deleted from the register on the expiry of certain periods (three or five years). Companies listed in the register will also have the opportunity to apply for premature deletion from the register if they have taken self-cleaning measures.

Further information about the Competition Register is available (in German) on the website of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy.

Kai Hooghoff, Head of the Administration Division of the Bundeskartellamt, will lead the Establishment Team.


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