The Cartel Office's Round Timber Proceeding from the view of theories of competition.

摘要

The Anti-Trust-Proceeding (Round Timber Proceeding) assessed a violation of the German Competition Protection Act pertaining to the practice of joined timber marketing by the "Lander" forest administrations and private or municipal forest owners. The outcome or progress of the proceeding depends on the agreement of the federal states to the marketing rules proposed by the Federal Cartel Office. In accordance to these rules, Cartels will only be surveyed in cases exceeding a marketability threshold of 8000 ha of managed forest land. This is not expected to lead to any essential structural changes. The proceeding pursued a structure orientated and polypolistic approach, which refers to the Neoclassic and the Ordoliberalism schools of competition theory. It could accordingly be regarded as protecting the market opposition, the saw mills. This consideration is only one-sided, when seen in the context of a increasingly concentrated demand. Based on the Dilemma-Thesis, which devises a contradiction between competition and economic welfare, it could be advantageous to allow for cooperation. This aspect is already considered in the law. The Chicago school would interpret the market power of the forest administration as an expression of its economic efficiency. However, this interpretation cannot hold, because the market power is mainly based on resource control and due to political decisions. Interdependencies between and subsidisation of different services offered by the forest administration, including the timber marketing, constitute grave market barriers. However, a crucial part of dynamic competition theories is a market without entry and exit barriers, which regards potential competition as compensation for market power concentration. The argumentation that the proceeding will lead to an opening of the market, as well as the criticism, it endangers the mobilisation of wood from small scale forest properties, are not justified. The proposed marketability threshold of 8000 ha prevents on the one hand regulation towards a market opening and on the other hand will have no influence on resource mobilisation, as small forest owners are still allowed to cooperate with the forest administration. Especially if we consider that the round timber market is characterised by low entry and exit costs, the structural approach seems inappropriate for its analysis. It will be revealed whether or not further Dumping-Proceedings will engage the real market failure - the market barriers. In addition, the persistence of the proceeding since 2001 may be criticised as factor of high planning uncertainty.