Professor Podszun appointed to Media Commission

Prof. Dr. Rupprecht Podszun has been appointed as a substitute member of the Commission on Concentration in the Media (KEK) for five years. This was decided by the Conference of Prime Ministers of the German Länder in March. The KEK is a body provided for in the State Treaty on Media which is to ensure pluralism of opinion in Germany.  To this end, the commission examines whether a company is allowed to acquire a stake in a media enterprise. For television broadcasters, this type of control takes its place alongside merger control by the Federal Cartel Office or the European Commission.
"I am looking forward to the new task at the KEK," says Rupprecht Podszun, who holds the Chair for Civil Law, German and European Competition Law at Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf. "The Länder have announced that media concentration law will soon be reformed. I think that is also right in view of the considerable changes in the sector." Podszun also wants to contribute his experience with competition law to the reform process. He worked at the Federal Cartel Office for two years before joining academia.