Mandate

Gleiss Lutz obtains a 'Comfort Letter' from the European Commission for the European cloud project Gaia-X

A Gleiss Lutz team has obtained a so-called Comfort Letter from the European Commission on behalf of Gaia-X and its advisory board members, including numerous DAX40 corporations.

Gaia-X is driving the development of an open, transparent and secure digital ecosystem. To this end, common requirements for a European cloud infrastructure are being defined, i.e. a common standard for data exchange is being developed. This project was initiated by the German Minister of Economics, Peter Altmaier, and his French counterpart, Bruno le Maire.

On 19 October 2021, the European Commission granted Gaia-X one of the very rare 'Comfort Letters'. Comfort letters are informal letters from the European Commission that are intended to give the applicant companies legal certainty that their projects are compatible with antitrust law. In this specific case, the comfort letter concerns the criteria for membership of Gaia-X and the voting and participation rights of Gaia-X members. The comfort letter for Gaia-X therefore also demonstrates the importance of this project.

Gleiss Lutz regularly advises companies on compliance with antitrust law. In particular, Gleiss Lutz regularly advises on standard setting organisations at the interface of antitrust and IP law.

The following Gleiss Lutz team acted for Gaia-X: Dr Petra Linsmeier (Partner, Lead), Dr Daniel Petzold, Dr Tobias Klemm (all Antitrust), Dr Matthias Werner (Counsel, IP/IT, all Munich).​


Forward