The warning from Bonn
Andreas Mundt, President of the Federal Cartel Office, has warned of a creeping danger: if revenue thresholds for merger control were raised, local and regional markets would tip unnoticed. Bakery chains, pharmacies, municipal utilities, regional bus companies — sectors where competition takes place at city level or in districts, not nationwide. According to the Act against Restraints of Competition (GWB §35), the federal thresholds are based on combined worldwide turnover of the undertakings concerned and domestic turnover of the target — many local acquisitions remain below that line. The Federal Cartel Office does not learn of them. Municipalities and states have no merger control of their own. Between the federal threshold and municipal capacity, a blind spot emerges.
No notification requirement for sub-national concentration
Germany has no notification requirement for corporate acquisitions below the nationwide thresholds, even when they dominate a local market. Hypothetically, a bakery operation with 30 branches in a mid-sized city could buy a competitor with 15 branches without the Federal Cartel Office learning of it — as long as nationwide revenues remain below the threshold. The consequence: in retail markets, in local public transport, in pharmacies or energy supply, local monopolies can form without any competition authority intervening. Mundt describes the risk as structural: if thresholds were raised further, the blind spot would grow. The number of reviewed mergers would fall, the number of unreviewed local concentrations would rise.
Canada shares data with provinces
Canada has recognized this problem and built a solution. The Canadian Competition Bureau operates a model of data sharing with provincial authorities regarding notified mergers. Provinces can use federal data to monitor local market concentration. When a company in British Columbia buys a competitor and does not reach the federal threshold, the province can still examine whether the purchase harms competition in Vancouver or Victoria. The system records buyer, target company, sector, revenue, date. The provinces receive access. The decision to review remains with the responsible level. The system separates information from intervention. It creates transparency without creating new approval procedures.
Germany: No database, no transparency
In Germany, no comparable infrastructure exists. The Federal Cartel Office records only the mergers that are notified to it. Below the threshold there is no notification requirement, therefore no data. States and municipalities have no access to a central database of corporate acquisitions. When a city determines that three of four pharmacies in a district belong to the same owner, it can name the problem but cannot systematically monitor it. There is no early warning, no structured information, no way to recognize patterns before a market has tipped. Federalism, which in other areas serves as an argument for diversity, becomes an obstacle here: no level has the data, no level has the authority, no level can act.
The next question: Who builds the database
Mundt's warning describes the problem. The next question is: who builds the solution. A database of all corporate acquisitions, even below the federal threshold, would be technically simple. Companies could be required to report every acquisition above a low threshold — say 5 million euros revenue of the target company — to a central office. The Federal Cartel Office could maintain the database, states and municipalities receive access. The notification would not be an approval requirement, but an information requirement. No additional review, no delay, only transparency. The Canadian model shows that such approaches exist. The question is not technical but political: who decides that this database will be built, and who enforces the notification requirement.
Local markets, federal blindness
The blind spot in German merger control is an enforcement problem, not a legal problem. The Act against Restraints of Competition exists, the Federal Cartel Office exists, the states have economic ministries. What is missing is the infrastructure that allows information to flow from one level to another. Federalism does not mean that each level works blind. It means that each level receives the data it needs to fulfill its task. A federal database that gives states and municipalities access to merger data would not be an intrusion into the federal order, but its enablement. Without this infrastructure, Mundt's warning remains a diagnosis without therapy.
What follows
The warning has been spoken. The solution has been described. Comparative models exist. Germany has not built one. The question is not whether the problem exists — Mundt has named it. The question is who builds the database, who introduces the notification requirement, who gives states and municipalities access. Or whether Germany continues to watch as local markets tip unnoticed, because no level has the data it would need to act.
Band 1 "Freistaat" describes why Germany names problems but does not solve them — and why enforcement does not fail because of laws, but because of missing infrastructure. Merger control is one example. The database is not missing because it would be impossible, but because no one has decided to build it.