Violation of Competition Law | Unlawful Competitive Agreements

Munich is home to numerous major companies across various industries, including Allianz SE, BMW, Linde AG, MAN, Infineon, Munich Re, Siemens, Burda Verlag, Süddeutscher Verlag, and Munich Airport. With such a diverse business landscape — ranging from unskilled positions to highly specialised roles — competition between companies is frequent. This competitive environment sometimes leads to violations of competition law, including unlawful collusion, which increasingly necessitates the involvement of our commercial detectives in Munich.

Act Against Restraints of Competition

While every company aims to secure as many contracts as possible, the ends do not always justify the means. Under §1 of the GWB (Act Against Restraints of Competition), agreements or coordinated behaviours by companies that aim to deliberately prevent, restrict, or distort competition are prohibited. Such violations are often accompanied by additional offences, including bribery and corruption. The following case from 2010 illustrates this type of offence:

Case Example: Excluding Competitors at a Cemetery

Several stonemasons in Munich, as reported in the media, were disadvantaged because necessary work on existing gravestones — such as removing stones that were no longer stable — was awarded exclusively by a large Munich cemetery administration to stonemasons who paid a “tip” to the responsible official. Consequently, the willing stonemasons (X, Y, and Z) regularly received contracts, while law-abiding stonemasons (A, B, and C) were left empty-handed.

Customers Deceived into Having No Choice

Complicating matters further, the relatives of the deceased, who owned the gravesites, were not informed about the removal of the stones. Instead, they received only a bill from the assigned stonemason for removal and an estimate for a new, stable gravestone. This effectively left the customers with no alternative. The assigned stonemason (X, Y, or Z) retained control of the original stone.

 

Most customers then commissioned that same stonemason to reinstall the stone, and only rarely did they select a different stonemason. In those cases, the original holder (e.g., Z) would deliberately obstruct the handover, requiring multiple appointments due to intentional delays.

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Exclusive contracts obtained through bribery or other unlawful competitive practices? The IHK-certified commercial detectives of Kurtz Investigations Munich provide professional evidence-gathering — not only for stonemasons but for companies across all sectors.

Munich Detectives Expose Unfair Competitors

This case constitutes a violation of §1 GWB combined with bribery in office, corruption, and, in part, a breach of the customer protection clause, which guarantees clients the freedom to choose their service provider. If you, as a customer, are pressured to hire certain companies, or if you, as a business owner, discover that competitors are using unfair means to secure contracts and distort fair competition, contact our commercial investigation team in Munich: +49 89 7007 4301.