Abstract

Increasing Business Concentration in the Federal Republic of Germany - On the significance of the third major opinion of the monopoly commission for banking

In 1980, the monopoly commission submitted its third major opinion, “Merger Control Still Has High Priority”, to the federal government. In addition to statistical evidence on the predominantly increasing business concentration in the industrial sector and among large firms, ventilation of the trend towards concentration in the press, of the application of the regulations concerning the supervision of abuses and merger control, and of the influences of international competition, the two-year report also deals with problems and the findings of studies immediately affecting the banking sector. One study, for instance, which covers interlacement of personnel in the hundred largest firms, shows that there is multiple membership of bank representatives in management control bodies, which results in numerous cases of interlocking directorships among large firms. The assessment of personnel interlacement from the standpoint of competition policy is still controversial. Special effects on competition due to interlocking via bank representatives might arise, if the banks, acting to safeguard their own interests in connection with their loan business, exert influence through their representatives either to combat risky competition strategies or to attain competitive advantages. A further point of significance for the banking business is the monopoly commission’s proposal to introduce deconcentration possibilities as an instrument of competition policy. The banking sector is certainly directly affected as far as participations by banks in the shape of controlling interests in non-banks are concerned. It may be affected if, in the case of structureconditioned abuses, the object is to counter personal interlacement between competitors simply because the banks contribute substantially to interlocking of firms by way of their personnel. In weighing up the various interests, however, it must be taken into account that the debate on deconcentration suggested by the monopoly commission aims at preserving functionally efficient competition and hence at safeguarding an essential attribute of the market economy system.