Federal government limits petrol station spending: Industry calls for abolition of the 12 o'clock rule

In order to keep prices at the pumps under control, the federal government limits pricing at gas stations. Much to the displeasure of part of the industry. This also resulted in times with little demand. In addition, technical problems result in unnecessary fines. Since April, gas stations have only been allowed to raise prices once a day - but can lower them at any time. The independent gas stations are now calling for the abolition of this 12 o'clock rule. In a survey by the industry association bft, a good two thirds were in favor of a complete repeal. Another seventh of those surveyed want a fundamental overhaul, as the association reports. 132 companies with a total of more than 850 gas stations took part in the survey. That's around a quarter of the association's members. There are around 14,000 gas stations nationwide, but most of them belong to large oil companies. “Customers very quickly understood what the regulation means: they fill up before 12 p.m. and then wait,” says bft boss Carsten Müller, describing the effects. “In this way, the legislature is creating artificial peaks and idle times instead of improving competition.” The ADAC also criticizes the regulation. The lobby association considers them to drive up prices. "It can be observed that the limited ability to raise prices leads to oil companies pricing in risk premiums." In the past few days there had been an average price jump of 20 cents per liter across all types of fuel at 12 p.m. The price fell to almost the same extent in the following 24 hours. Various economists have made similar statements. At the beginning of August, CSU boss Markus Söder also said on ARD: "We should urgently take another look to see whether this 12 o'clock rule really works. My feeling: it doesn't work very well and doesn't have much of an effect." Many gas station operators also report problems with compliance: "Only 45.5 percent of those surveyed can implement the price increase at all stations completely automatically at exactly 12 p.m.," says bft general manager Daniel Kaddik. "At the same time, almost two thirds report temporal deviations between the systems involved." Around one in eight of the companies that took part in the survey have already been written to by the authorities about discrepancies. “Anyone who issues warnings or fines because of a technical deviation of two or three minutes must accept the question of measure and proportionality,” criticizes Kaddik. The Federal Cartel Office recently reported that deviations have increased again, but bodies in the federal states are responsible for sanctioning. Figures are already available for some of them. At the beginning of August, Schleswig-Holstein reported that more than 21,000 potential violations had been checked, and Berlin reported 6,600 deviations in April and May alone. The federal government introduced the 12 o'clock rule in April to bring the prices of gasoline and diesel, which have risen since the Iran War, under control. Since then, prices have been allowed to increase once a day at 12 p.m. In the event of violations, fines of up to 100,000 euros are possible.