The German competition authority Bundeskartellamt, approved the establishment of a joint venture named “Unamera”, an online trading platform for the sale agricultural products.
Unamera, launched as a joint venture by the grain trading companies BayWa AG, Getreide AG and ATR Landhandel, will serve as a platform for trading in particular in grain and oil seeds between agricultural trading companies on the side of the platform and farmers and processors on the other side. The platform will be used for accessing to the farmers by both agricultural producers and agricultural trading companies.
The Authority assessed that the supply of standardized products such as grains and oil seeds on the platform will increase the transparency and make price fixing agreements easier; however, no competition concern has been identified in the light of the knowledge that the market participants in the market have to register on the platform separately as suppliers and customers with a client login, and that the prices of the products will at first be shown anonymously until the final stage of the contract. The Authority also reverted to its practice in the “XOM Metals” case and stated that the platform and parties of the joint venture must operate separately for preventing an anti-competitive flow of information.
Based on these grounds, the Bundeskartellamt approved the joint venture.
(“Bundeskartellamt – 05.02.2020”)