Portrait in FINANCE magazine – "Hengeler lawyer 'Hansi' Ziegenhain: An M&A legend steps down"
13 August 2025
Condor Flugdienst GmbH ("Condor") uses short-haul flights operated by Deutsche Lufthansa AG ("Lufthansa") to offer them in combination with its own long-haul flights as a single connection. For this purpose, Lufthansa and Condor had entered into a special pricing agreement (so-called Special Prorate Agreement – "SPA"). Lufthansa terminated the SPA towards the end of 2020. The German Federal Cartel Office ("FCO") subsequently initiated proceedings and, in August 2022, concluded that, by terminating the SPA, Lufthansa had abused an alleged dominant market position, and ordered Lufthansa to enter into a new SPA with Condor in accordance with certain requirements.
Lufthansa filed an appeal against the decision of the FCO with the Higher Regional Court ("OLG") of Düsseldorf. In preliminary proceedings, the OLG Düsseldorf granted suspensive effect to the appeal, citing serious doubts as to the formal and substantive legality of the FCO’s decision. Appeals against this court order, filed by the FCO and Condor, were dismissed by the Federal Court of Justice in December 2024, thereby confirming the interim decision of the OLG Düsseldorf.
In the subsequent main proceedings, the OLG Düsseldorf again ruled in favor of Lufthansa on 20 August 2025 and annulled the FCO’s decision. The OLG Düsseldorf found that the decision of the FCO was already unlawful on formal grounds, as the members of the competent decision division of the FCO had given rise to concerns of bias.
The Brussels office of Hengeler Mueller represented Lufthansa in the proceedings together with Latham & Watkins.
Inhouse team Lufthansa
Jörg Meinke, Marc Wiesner, Christine Nowak (all Competition & Antitrust Law).
Hengeler Mueller team for Lufthansa
Antitrust: Christoph Wilken (lead), Christian Dankerl (counsel), Christoph Sielmann (associate, all Brussels).
