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On 8 June 2010, the Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Supreme Court - BGH) confirmed the decision taken by the Bundeskartellamt (Federal Cartel Office - BKartA) in 2006 to ban the merger between Axel Springer AG and TV broadcaster ProSiebenSat1. The BKartA had prohibited the planned merger due to concerns about competition (see IRIS 2006-4: 10/16). Springer's appeal against this decision was initially rejected by the Oberlandesgericht Düsseldorf (Düsseldorf Regional Appeal Court - OLG) as inadmissible. Springer successfully appealed to the BGH against this ruling and the matter was referred back to the...

In his report on the financing of public service broadcasting, published on 6 May 2010, Prof. Dr Kirchhof, former Federal Constitutional Judge, recommends that the licence fee obligation should no longer be dependent on whether the fee payer owns a broadcasting reception device, but should apply to each household. ARD, ZDF and Deutschlandradio had commissioned Kirchhof to write the report. He believes that linking the licence fee to reception devices is inappropriate, raising doubts over the legality of the current licence system. One reason for this is media convergence. Whereas in the early days...

At their conference on 9 June 2010, the prime ministers of the Länder agreed in a position paper that the broadcasting licence fee will in future not be charged per device but per household (home) or place of business. The main objectives of this change to a device-independent broadcasting licence fee model are to solve the problem of media convergence, create a simpler system for levying licence fees and achieve an expected a reduction in administrative costs. It is intended to keep the licence fee at its current level of EUR 17.98, and there will no longer be a distinction between a standing...

On 4 April 2010, the Bundesministerium der Justiz (Federal Ministry of Justice - BMJ) presented a draft law strengthening the freedom of the press. The bill aims to improve the protection of journalists and their sources in order to ensure that they can fulfil their oversight function vis-à-vis State activities. This is to be achieved by amending Art. 353b of the Strafgesetzbuch (Criminal Code - StGB), which provides for imprisonment of up to five years for breaches of official secrecy and special obligations of secrecy by public officials. An additional paragraph will be added to the article,...

In a decision of 8 April 2010, the Bundesverwaltungsgericht (Federal Administrative Court - BVerwG) rejected an urgent application by a network operator against the auction of 2.6 GHz frequencies. The applicant (broadband provider Airdata) used some of the frequencies concerned under a fixed-term licence. Since that licence had now expired, it requested an extension, which would block the auction. The BVerwG rejected the urgent application after weighing up the various interests. As a result of its decision, the auction of frequencies (360 MHz in total) could begin, as planned, on 12 April 2010....