German steel producer Klöckner allowed to launch online trading platform
The German competition authority Bundeskartellamt has approved Klöckner's plans for an online trading platform, XOM Metals, for business-to-business trade in steel products. The approval was given after Klöckner modified the platform's organisational structure and part of its functions to avoid the competition concerns that arose in connection with the original plans for the trading platform.
Press release of 28 February 2018 issued by the German Bundeskartellamt – Klöckner darf digitale Plattform für Stahlprodukte starten
By student intern Mathias Rønø Bove
The original competition concerns of the Bundeskartellamt related first and foremost to the availability of price information resulting from an open trading platform. The access to price information would be problematic, because users of the trading platform would be competing businesses which could therefore adjust their own prices in line with the available data.
To avoid this inconvenient transparency, Klöckner has now designed the platform in a manner that restricts access to information about prices. In addition, Klöckner has made access to the price information conditional upon the users being logged into and registered on the online platform.
Another competition concern was that Klöckner, through two subsidiaries, would be a competitor to the other users of the platform. Klöckner has reduced that problem by securing organisational separation between the trading platform and Klöckner.
Following the modifications to the online platform, the Bundeskartellamt finds that the platform is no longer at risk of breaching competition law.
The decision is noteworthy because it shows that by taking the required confidentiality measures it is possible to create trading platforms that can be used also by competitors without giving rise to competition concerns.
Read the press release. (in German)
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