최근 개정된 독일경쟁법에 대한 소고

Abstract

As the global economy becomes ever more integrated and digitized and multinationals grow ever more in size and market power not only domestically but across national boundaries, competition authorities everywhere find it increasingly difficult to deal with the new types of challenges posed by transborder mergers, accumulation of market power by corporations that are not physically present inside the national jurisdictions, and the information asymmetry experienced both by consumers and regulators alike, particularly in cases of the data-rich e-commerce companies that form the backbone of the new digital economy. Germany recently implemented the ninth amendment to its competition law. The new amendment brings a number of changes to the existing German competition law. One of the changes is to implement the EU Damages Directive which purports to make it easier for victims of antitrust law breaches to claim compensation from the offenders for the harm that they suffered. A main obstacle against a successful civil action for antitrust law offence was information asymmetry that exists between the claimant and the defendant particularly in a jurisdiction whose civil procedure does not provide for a process such as discovery. To address this imbalance, the new amendment purports to facilitate access to information and evidence held by the offenders or regulators for victims of antitrust law breach. Furthermore, the new law establishes certain legal presumptions that advantage the claimants reversing the onus of proof. But perhaps the most significant change brought by the new law is a new definition of market and conditions for merger control in an attempt to address the latest problems posed by the digital economy, network effect and the access to vast amounts of data held by global Internet giants such as Google and Facebook. Law is always playing catch-up to technology and it remains to be seen whether these latest changes to the German competition law will be sufficient to meet the fresh challenges thrown up by the evolution of globalization and digitalization. Although the Korean regulatory environment and the competition landscape are quite different to those of Germany, these are nevertheless common issues also shared by the Korean competition authority and it is hoped that this review may provide some insight into how similar problems may be addressed in Korea.