The German Federal Cartel Office Believes No Significant Improvement Has Occurred

The German Federal Cartel Office believes no significant improvement has occurred in the underlying conditions for log marketing in the German states of North-Rhine Westphalia, Thuringia, Rhineland-Palatinate, and Baden-Württemberg. This is the conclusion the competition authority comes to in report for 2011/2012 published on 26 June 2013. In the activity report, the cartel office points out that the pooled log marketing of volumes from public, local-authority, and private forests in Baden-Württemberg were subjected to close scrutiny. Market players in Baden-Württemberg are meanwhile working from the assumption that the cartel office will report the results of the investigation in September. The result is expected to be marked changes in the existing log marketing system without long transition periods. A centralised system of marketing, particularly for logs from local-authority forests, through the ForstBW regional forest office is likely to only be possible to a very limited extent in future from as early as 2014.