Defining the leeway for business cooperation: remaining peculiarities under German competition law after its Europeanisation

his paper provides an overview of remaining national peculiarities after the alignment of the German competition law rules on cooperation between businesses with EU competition law. The focus lies on Section 3 of the German Competition Act which provides firms with extended leeway for cooperation in order to improve the competitiveness of small and medium-sized enterprises. In addition, the paper explores to what extent Section 30 of the German Competition Act exempts certain forms of cooperation that concern the distribution of newspapers and magazines from the prohibition of restrictive agreements pursuant to Section 1 of the German Competition Act and (partly even) Article 101 TFEU