Florian Prischl

I spent last weekend with a very nice group from my alpine club chapter on a glacier mountaineering course. We learned a lot about advanced mountaineering techniques and even got to climb the highest mountain of both Upper Austria and Styria, Dachstein! #alps

Großglockner, Austria's highest mountain at 3,798 m. This was a beautiful tour that offered some of everything and required varied skills - lots of fun! I experienced the thin air starting around 3,650m - uncomfortable, but it didn't affect my physical strength or coordination so I made it. #alps

I understand that other state-affiliated entities also relied on their issuance of securities to claim this exemption. This will now have to change.

The Constitutional Court rejected our argument that this exemption as a whole is unconstitutional. However, it also rejected the extremely broad interpretation of the Administrative Court Vorarlberg. State-affiliated entities cannot dodge their duty to provide information on thin reasoning.

Freedom of Information #FOI in Austria: A state-affiliated entity cannot refuse info under the exemption for publicly listed entities if the entity is not actually listed but merely issues tradable securities. Thank you for trusting me with this matter, @moserat.bsky.social!

New #ecoevo paper @pnas.org: Evolution of species’ range and niche in changing environments. I show that feedback between evolutionary and population dynamics can create a tipping point where genetic variance erodes, and species’ ranges contract or fragment www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... #popgen 🧬🧪 🌎

It me. (Credit to Disney and Don Rosa, I believe this panel is out of the 1994 story "The Duck That Never Was", which is a retelling/homage to "It's a Wonderful Life".)

Das betrifft nicht zuletzt Themen wie den Informationsaustausch und die Akteneinsicht; EuGH-Urteil C-2/23 klärt bei weitem nicht alles. Hier könnten Überarbeitungen der Gesetze helfen, um den Wettbewerb zu stärken.

3) Der BWB setzen das Gesetz (gut!) und ihr relativ kleines Budget deutliche Grenzen, was zum nächsten Punkt führt: 4) Heutiges Urteil ist Ergebnis von StA-Ermittlungen. Die Schnittstelle zwischen Straf- und Kartellrecht ist mitunter schwierig zu navigieren und immer wieder ein Stolperstein.

Meine Analyse: 1) Die Höhe von Geldbußen steigt nach dem REWE-Urteil 2025 (€70 Mio) rasant. Dass STRABAG die Buße akzeptiert, ist vielleicht ein Zeichen, dass Unternehmen nun ein höheres Risiko in Rechtsmitteln (Rekurs an KOG (OGH)) sehen. 2) BWB demonstriert weiterhin Kompetenz und Hartnäckigkeit.

Damit wird eine Geldbuße gegen STRABAG aus 2021 um ca. €100 Mio (!) erhöht. Erst strafrechtliche Ermittlungen der WKStA deckten die zusätzlichen, der BWB nicht offengelegten Fälle auf.

Schon wieder eine Rekord-Geldbuße im österreichischen #Kartellrecht: Kartellgericht verurteilt STRABAG zu €146 Mio, nachdem die @bwboesterreich.bsky.social feststellte, dass STRABAG im Baukartell-Fall als Kronzeugin nicht alle Informationen offenlegte. STRABAG wird kein Rechtsmittel erheben.

4) This result is based on criminal investigations by public prosecution into criminal bid rigging. Interplay of Austrian criminal and competition law can be tricky, in particular re: sharing of info and access to file (recently partially adjudicated by ECJ C-2/23).

3) BWB (FCA) is constrained by law (good) and its comparatively small budget, leading into next point:

My analysis: 1) Austria continues path of higher #antitrust / #competition law fines. Acceptance by STRABAG may show that risk appetite for appeals re: fines is severely reduced following last year's €70 mil REWE fine. 2) @bwboesterreich.bsky.social demonstrates resolution and skill in prosecution.

This follows, and increases, a 2021 fine of ~€45 million on STRABAG in relation to a long-running, long-investigated construction cartel in Austria. After that, criminal investigations into the cartel apparently revealed STRABAG involvement not disclosed to Austrian Federal Competition Authority.

Highest cartel/#antitrust fine ever imposed in 🇦🇹: Construction firm STRABAG today ordered to pay €146 million after competition authority @bwboesterreich.bsky.social found STRABAG to have withheld information in immunity/leniency proceedings. STRABAG has accepted the fine.

As I watch footage of explosions in Beirut and dust clouds towering above apartment blocks in Tehran, I keep coming back to something that I witnessed back in the summer of '04, during my first tour in Iraq. But first, let's start with a question: Have you ever heard someone wail? 1/

@georgrenner.istdaswichtig.at Ich vermute, dass die IFG-Anfrage fragdenstaat.at/anfrage/stel... von Ihnen stammt - bitte um Freischaltung des Anhangs in der Nachricht des BKA vom 30.10.2025. Danke! :)

Today, political horse trading is often treated as more important than following policy goals and values, even as virtuous. This makes the fierce independence of #competition authorities who follow the (rule of) law even more important. Interesting proposal from Yon-Courtin, worth discussing!

oh this one is even better

love me some Cold War graphs taken out of context

I've heard a lot about it and am curious to try - how do I install this on my system? #openclaw #lobstersupremacy #carcinize

I’ve been wanting to write about William Gibson’s “Jackpot” books, and the concept of "slow disasters" in general, for a while… and now I have, for DOOMSDAY MACHINES: doomsdaymachines.net/p/hitting-th...

Awesome thread explaining how stellar streams are connected to the search for dark matter, the main motivation for applying our anomaly detection algorithm CATHODE to Gaia data to look for more streams in arxiv.org/abs/2509.08064

🇦🇹 Bundeskanzler Stocker schlägt vor, zum #Wehrpflicht Reformvorschlag eine "Volksbefragung, deren Ergebnis bindend sein soll" abzuhalten. DANN MACHT EINE VOLKSABSTIMMUNG! Wozu haben wir denn ein B-VG, wenns offenbar niemand liest? Was soll das? 😡🙄😵‍💫

@standplaatskrk.pl

Bitte um Empfehlungen für Elektriker_in in Wien, der/die eine Wohnung anschaut und darin so viel Netzwerkverkabelung einzieht wie möglich. #LANparty

The notion that "the far right is pro-Israel" has gained traction as of late, esp. among the "the Middle East conflict is not complex at all" crowd. Let's take a closer look 🧵 and wrongly assume, for the sake of argument, that "pro-Israel" equals "supporting what the state of Israel is doing". 1/13

@buechereienwien.bsky.social Ich würde gerne sehr viel mehr auf Englisch lesen; in euren Online-Katalogen (Libby, OnLeihe) ist das englischsprachige Angebot nicht groß (eh klar). Habt ihr eine Idee, wie ich mehr bekommen könnte? So etwas wie eine Art internationale Bücherei oder so?

While a fine set as a proportion of turnover is broadly accepted, REWE may have a case in view of the leeway given by Austrian law to courts, and in view of approach taken by Austrian courts that 10% of turnover is not a cap, but determines range. Nuanced point, but important for fine amounts.

REWE argues that the fine is blatantly disproportionate to the offence committed, which it describes as a "formal violation" of the law. If the ECHR takes up the case, I expect some insight into the nature of antitrust fines (punitive/criminal?).

REWE, the retailer handed the highest ever Austrian🇦🇹 #competition fine, plans to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights #ECHR (media reports confirmed by the company).

If somebody didn't get it by now, you will not change their minds and you risk having the opposite effect. They invent one new bullshit everyday, ignore them, don't feed the trolls, don't engage with their content. It is not healthy.

Get with your people. Build community. A community is the basic building block for love and resistance.

#koalitionsverhandlungen

listening to JD Vance’s speech. The US is no longer a European ally. They actually view us as an ideological enemy. We have to realise and accept that and act accordingly as soon as possible. Ie NOW.

I'm clinging to the hopeful thought that maybe, maybe we're not yet fully screwed. But yeah, Europe is way behind and needs to drastically improve its independence.

Gesucht: Steuerberatung für mich in #Wien oder Umgebung. Selbständig, Ein-/Ausgabenrechnung, vor allem für ESt, aber grundsätzlich auch USt. UVA mach ich üblicherweise selbst. Bitte um eure #Empfehlungen!

The Court clearly expects authorities to step up their fine requests. To quote the Court: "fines should be an effective controlling tool against breaches of competition law, [...] as they have been common at the EU level and in other EU Member States for a long time". #competitionlaw #antitrust

🇦🇹 Austrian Supreme Court issues highest-ever #competition fine in a failure to notify case: EUR 70 million. 💶 The first instance fine was only EUR 1.5 million. Summary of the decision in German on the Court's website: www.ogh.gv.at/entscheidung...

Wer will am Samstag im Volkstheater "Camino Real" mit Calexico sehen und braucht noch Tickets? Wir haben welche übrig: www.willhaben.at/iad/kaufen-u... #wien #theater

Die Wahlbeteiligung in "meiner" Gemeinde ist im Vergleich zu 2019 um 11,7%, im Vergleich zu 2017 um 5,1% (jeweils Prozentpunkte) gestiegen. #beifunk #NRW24