Germany's Federal Court of Justice (BGH) has reopened one of Europe's largest competition disputes involving the forest sector, overturning a key ruling in the long-running timber cartel litigation and sending the case back to the Higher Regional Court (OLG) Stuttgart for further examination.<\/p>\n
The case concerns damage claims exceeding \u20ac800 million brought on behalf of dozens of German sawmills, which argue they paid artificially inflated prices for softwood sawlogs because of the former joint marketing system operated by several state forestry enterprises.<\/p>\n
The latest ruling does not end the litigation. Instead, it confirms that the collective claims may continue while requiring the lower court to examine more thoroughly whether the alleged anti-competitive practices actually resulted in higher timber prices and measurable financial losses for individual sawmills.<\/p>\n
One of Europe's largest forestry antitrust disputes<\/strong><\/p>\n The legal battle dates back more than 15 years, when Germany's Federal Cartel Office challenged the joint marketing of softwood sawlogs by state forestry organisations. The competition authority argued that selling timber from state, municipal and private forests through common marketing structures restricted competition and distorted the market.<\/p>\n Several federal states subsequently restructured their timber marketing systems. Baden-W\u00fcrttemberg, for example, separated timber sales according to forest ownership categories after years of legal disputes with the competition authority.<\/p>\n Following these reforms, sawmills claimed they had overpaid for timber over many years and assigned their claims to compensation companies established by litigation funder Burford Capital. Separate ASG entities were created for Baden-W\u00fcrttemberg, Hesse, North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate and Thuringia to pursue antitrust damages.<\/p>\n The combined claims now exceed \u20ac800 million, making the proceedings one of the largest competition lawsuits ever brought in the European forest sector.<\/p>\n Top court confirms collective action but raises evidentiary standard<\/strong><\/p>\n In August 2024, the Higher Regional Court of Stuttgart ruled that the claims could, in principle, proceed and found that anti-competitive agreements had existed regarding the joint marketing of timber from municipal forests larger than 100 hectares.<\/p>\n Both Baden-W\u00fcrttemberg and the claimants appealed.<\/p>\n On 28 July 2026, the Federal Court of Justice partly overturned that judgment. While confirming that the collective assignment of claims to ASG is legally admissible, the court concluded that the Stuttgart judges had not sufficiently established whether the alleged cartel conduct actually caused higher log prices or how the claimed damages should be calculated.<\/p>\n The proceedings have therefore been referred back to the OLG Stuttgart, which must conduct additional fact-finding before reaching a new decision.<\/p>\n The ruling means that the sawmills remain in the litigation but will have to present stronger evidence linking the former timber marketing system to specific overcharges and quantifiable losses.<\/p>\n Cases continue across Germany<\/strong><\/p>\n The Baden-W\u00fcrttemberg proceedings are regarded as the leading test case, but related litigation remains active elsewhere.<\/p>\n Claims are still pending in Hesse, while proceedings in North Rhine-Westphalia continue following questions previously referred to the Court of Justice of the European Union concerning collective antitrust damages actions. Cases linked to Rhineland-Palatinate and Thuringia also remain unresolved.<\/p>\n The outcome of the Stuttgart proceedings is therefore expected to influence similar claims across several German federal states.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":99427,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"Default","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5204],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n