Bundeskartellamt prohibits E.ON Hanse from acquiring a stake in Stadtwerke Lübeck

The Bundeskartellamt has prohibited the E.ON subsidiary E.ON Hanse AG (previously Schleswag AG), Rendsburg, from acquiring a 49,9 per cent share in the municipal utility Stadtwerke Lübeck GmbH.

The examination of the project has shown that the planned participation is likely to result in a strengthening of dominant positions in the national and local markets for electricity and gas sales. The actual markets affected are those for the supply of electricity to electricity distributors, to major and to small electricity customers as well as the market for the supply of gas to major gas customers.

With a view to preventing a prohibition E.ON had offered compensations which, however, were not sufficient to balance out the negative effects of the merger.

In the opinion of the Bundeskartellamt’s President, Dr Ulf Böge, a further strengthening of dominance would increase the companies’ scope for action, and thus also their leeway for raising prices, to the detriment of the consumers. Dr Böge described the prohibition as a “consistent continuation of the Bundeskartellamt’s policy to keep energy markets open and to act against further market foreclosure effects which are particularly associated with the participation of large grid companies in municipal utilities.”