The Bundeskartellamt has imposed fines amounting to approx. three million euros on eight magazine lending service providers. The companies are accused of having concluded illegal customer allocation agreements.

The companies concerned are Daheim Liefer-Service GmbH, Hamburg, a company belonging to the Ganske publishing group; the advertising agency Lesezirkel Brabandt LZ plus Media GmbH, Aalen; Lesezirkel Dörsch GmbH & Co. KG, Nuremberg; Lesezirkel Detlef Krumbeck GmbH, Pinneberg; Lesezirkel Die Medien-Palette GmbH & Co. KG, Hamm; Lesezirkel Media-Collection GmbH, Vellmar; Lesezirkel Die Hanse GmbH, Vellmar as well as Hettling´s LeseZirkel.

Andreas Mundt, President of the Bundeskartellamt: “The magazines on display in doctors’ practices, hairdressers or restaurants are often rented from magazine lending services. The agreements were concluded between the magazine lending services providers to prevent them from poaching business customers from one another. The customer allocation practice prevented price competition between the services.”

Magazine lending services purchase several magazines from publishers in order to create magazine packs which they usually rent out to their customers for a period of one week. Customers of this service are private individuals and so-called “public display” customers, i.e. doctors’ practices, hairdressers and restaurants where the magazines can be read by patients or customers while they are waiting.

According to the authority’s findings, bilateral agreements were concluded between Daheim Liefer-Service GmbH, which is active throughout Germany, and the other providers which are only active in specific regions. The aim of each agreement was to prevent the poaching of existing “public display” customers (doctors’ practices, hairdressers, etc.) between the services. Agreements were generally underpinned by the understanding that if one of the services poached another’s customer in spite of the agreement, it would hand over one of its own customers to that provider. This compensatory mechanism reduced any economic incentive to poach customers.

All the companies concerned agreed to have the proceedings terminated by settlement. Two companies cooperated with the Bundeskartellamt in clarifying the facts of the case and were granted a reduction of their fines. The fines imposed are final.

A case summary (in German) in accordance with Section 53(5) of the German Competition Act (GWB) can be accessed here.