CMS Hasche Sigle victory for gas providers

Celle Higher Regional Court revokes price abuse order

The cartel panel of Celle Higher Regional Court has today revoked a price abuse order from the Lower Saxony Regional Cartel Authority and at the same issued statements on market definition in the gas sector with far-reaching implications. Lawyers Dr Tim Reher and Dr Christian Haellmigk from CMS Hasche Sigle were successful in their representation of the appellant, Stadtwerke Uelzen GmbH.

In the order which was contested the Authority had maintained that the gas provider concerned had demanded allegedly excessive annual aggregate prices in a five-month period claiming that this constituted an abuse. The Authority had also ordered the gas provider to reimburse the excessive gas prices to the customers.

The cartel panel of Celle Higher Regional Court has now declared that the order is unlawful and has revoked it. The particular grounds the court gave were that the cartel authority had been unable to prove any market dominance of the gas provider. It held that the relevant product market was not a market for the supply of end customers with natural gas, but a general market for all heat providers.

Dr Reher: "This decision has far-reaching implications. The cartel authority's regulatory function with respect to price abuse in the sector for gas supply to private households will probably be obsolete in future owing to the market definition made by the court." Dr Haellmigk added: "The tightening up of the Act against Restraints of Competition passed by the Bundestag will also probably be superfluous in this respect." Celle Higher Regional Court has allowed appeal to the Federal Court of Justice.

Contact CMS Hasche Sigle

Dr Tim Reher
Tel.: +49 (0)40 / 3 76 30 - 363
E-mail: Tim.Reher@cms-hs.com

Dr Christian F. Haellmigk
Tel.: +49 (0)711/ 97 64 -304
E-mail: Christian.Haellmigk@cms-hs.com

About CMS Hasche Sigle

CMS Hasche Sigle is one of the leading German law firms with more than 500 lawyers. It covers the entire area of commercial law and provides legal advice to major German and international companies from a wide spectrum of industry. It has offices in Berlin, Cologne, Duesseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Leipzig, Munich, Stuttgart, Chemnitz, Dresden, Brussels, Belgrade, Moscow and Shanghai.

CMS Hasche Sigle is a partnership of lawyers and tax consultants; for register details / list of partners see www.cms-hs.com.

CMS Hasche Sigle is a member of CMS, an alliance of leading independent European law firms. With over 595 partners, a total of 2,000 lawyers and tax consultants and around 4,200 support staff we advise our clients at commercial locations in 48 business centres in Europe and further afield on legal and tax issues.

In addition to CMS Hasche Sigle, the following firms are also members of the CMS alliance: CMS Adonnino Ascoli & Cavasola Scamoni (Italy), CMS Albiñana & Suárez de Lezo (Spain), CMS Bureau Francis Lefebvre (France), CMS Cameron McKenna LLP (Great Britain), CMS DeBacker (Belgium), CMS Derks Star Busmann (the Netherlands), CMS von Erlach Henrici (Switzerland) and CMS Reich-Rohrwig Hainz (Austria). CMS has 58 offices in 25 countries around the world.

For further information on CMS Hasche Sigle see www.cms-hs.com and on the CMS alliance see www.cmslegal.com.