On April 2019 the Directive on Unfair Trading Practices in business-to-business relationships in the agricultural and food supply chain has entered into force. In particular the remedies that the Member States are supposed to offer seem to be designed after the blueprint of competition law enforcement, and the practices deemed “unfair” in this Directive are closely related to abusive practices under Article 102 TFEU. While such practices are typically based on an economic dependence, no dominant position as required by Article 102 TFEU will be found. So, the question is whether an expansion of the scope of control of unilateral conduct under competition law might be the way to implement the Directive.
Germany has a long-standing tradition with respect to the expansion of the scope of control of abusive conduct to undertakings with less than a dominant position. Following a brief introduction that outlines the contents of the Directive (I.) this contribution is going to give a picture of the provisions on control of so-called “relative market power”, i.e. a position of independence not versus all competitors and the opposite market side as defined by the ECJ, but only in the relation to individual trading partners under German competition law (II.), and finish with an outline of the structural problems that might stand in the way of implementing the new rules with a simple application or amendment of the competition law provisions on relative market power (III.)