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Stuttgart – On 28 July 2026, the German Federal Court of Justice overturned the judgment of Stuttgart Higher Regional Court (case no. 2 U 30/22) following an appeal by the State of Baden-Württemberg. Unlike Stuttgart Regional Court, which had heard the case at first instance, Stuttgart Higher Regional Court had upheld, on the merits, alleged claims for damages under competition law brought by 36 sawmills against the State of Baden-Württemberg in relation to the sale of timber on behalf of corporations and private forest owners. Stuttgart Regional Court was then to rule on the amount of damages. The Federal Court of Justice has now set aside the judgment of Stuttgart Higher Regional Court insofar as Stuttgart Higher Regional Court ruled against the State of Baden-Württemberg, and in part insofar as Stuttgart Higher Regional Court ruled against the claimant. The Federal Court of Justice has also referred the case back to Stuttgart Higher Regional Court for rehearing and decision.
The proceedings are based on a claim for damages under competition law against the State of Baden-Württemberg, in which 36 sawmills are seeking damages under competition law amounting to approximately 270 million euros, plus interest of approximately 203 million euros and further accruing interest, from the State of Baden-Württemberg. This is carried out with the assistance of a litigation funder and a litigation vehicle set up specifically for this purpose, to which the alleged claims have been assigned. In this context, the Federal Court of Justice once again had to consider the question of whether, and to what extent, such collective debt recovery is permissible in Germany.
The appeal lodged by the State of Baden-Württemberg was successful on the whole. The Federal Court of Justice has largely upheld the objections raised by the State of Baden-Württemberg. This relates in particular to the objections raised by the State of Baden-Württemberg, namely that Stuttgart Higher Regional Court was not entitled, on the basis of its findings, to conclude that the sale of timber was intended to restrict competition and that the foresters of Baden-Württemberg had acted either intentionally or negligently. Furthermore, the Federal Court of Justice agreed with the reasoning put forward by the State of Baden-Württemberg that, on the basis of its findings, Stuttgart Higher Regional Court could not assume that there was a sufficient probability that the sawmills had suffered a loss.
The State of Baden-Württemberg considers the overturning of the Higher Regional Court’s judgment – and, in particular, the grounds for the Federal Court of Justice's judgment – to be confirmation that there is no factual or legal basis for the claims for damages brought against the State of Baden-Württemberg.
A CMS team led by Dr Harald Kahlenberg and Dr Rolf Hempel has been providing the State of Baden-Württemberg with comprehensive advice on all competition law matters relating to timber sales since 2014. First, CMS represented the State of Baden-Württemberg in administrative proceedings before the German Federal Cartel Office and, in 2018, succeeded in having the Federal Cartel Office’s prohibition order set aside by the Federal Court of Justice. Since then, CMS has been representing the State of Baden-Württemberg in competition law-based claims for damages relating to the sale of timber by the Federal State of Baden-Württemberg. Prof. Dr Christian Rohnke (Rechtsanwalt, German Federal Court of Justice) represented the case before the German Federal Court of Justice.
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