Germany ∙ Exploit to Exclude: Federal Court of Justice Considers Facebook’s Data Policy to Violate Competition Law

On 23 June 2020, the German Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof) decided in summary proceedings that the Federal Cartel Office (Bundeskartellamt) was entitled to prohibit Facebook’s data combination policy as a violation of German competition law. The ruling is a complete departure from an earlier decision by the Dusseldorf Higher Regional Court, which had strongly criticised the Bundeskartellamt’s assessment.The different opinions are representative of a highly controversial debate, which is of considerable importance for the current reform discussion on abuse control with regard to large online platforms.