DLA Piper advises EWE on contract with Telekom Deutschland GmbH for joint venture “Glasfaser NordWest”

DLA Piper has advised the energy and telecommunications company EWE and its subsidiary, EWE TEL, on the negotiation and signing of a joint venture agreement with Telekom Deutschland GmbH on the expansion of the fiber optics net in North-West Germany. The joint venture operates under the name "Glasfaser NordWest". It is subject to merger control approval by the German Federal Cartel Office, which was filed on 21 March 2019.

Glasfaser NordWest aims to provide up to 1.5 million households and business locations with fast internet. The company will be active in parts of Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia, and Bremen. The cooperation between Telekom and EWE is a groundbreaking project. Glasfaser NordWest is designed as a pure infrastructure company and will make its network available to all telecommunications companies. The two partners expect to invest up to two billion euros over an approximately ten-year period.

Glasfaser NordWest will build the new infrastructure in the northwest in an open competitive selection process. In a start-up phase, the two parent companies Telekom and EWE will take over the construction of the network on behalf of Glasfaser NordWest. After this period, Glasfaser NordWest will also offer the expansion areas for bidding by third parties through a selection process. Once the lines have been laid, EWE, Deutsche Telekom, and all other interested telcos will compete directly for the respective customers.

The DLA Piper team was led by partner Dr Andreas Meyer-Landrut (Corporate) and comprised partners Dr Jan Dreyer (Antitrust) and Jan Pohle (IPT and Data Protection), counsel Dr Enno Ahlenstiel, senior associate Dr Gregor Schroll (both Antitrust) as well as associates Marx Dauth (Corporate) and Johannes Kirschey (Litigation, all Cologne).

The inhouse team at EWE comprised Dr Hanjo Steinkampf (Head of Legal EWE AG) and Leif Engelbrecht (Head of Corporate Legal EWE AG) as well as Sebastian Kummer (Corporate Legal EWE AG), Matthias Büning (Head of Legal and Regulatory EWE TEL), Andrea Weißenfels and Daniel Karim (both Law & Regulatory EWE TEL).