European Forestry Pulse #115 🌲

Hello,

Most forest owners have never read their own timber marketing agreement.

It gets signed once. Then it works quietly for decades.

Last month a German court picked up one of those arrangements. It looked at it very closely.

Then it declined to decide anything.

That sounds like an anticlimax. It is not.

Here's what's moving European forestry this week:

On 28 July 2026, Germany's Federal Court of Justice ruled in case KZR 11/24.

That court is the country's highest for civil matters. The ruling came from its antitrust panel.

It set aside a judgment of the Stuttgart Higher Regional Court. That judgment had found the State of Baden-Württemberg liable in principle.

The whole judgment went. Both the part that found liability, and the part that dismissed some claims.

The case now goes back to Stuttgart. It will be heard again.

A debt-collection service provider brought the case. It holds claims assigned to it by 36 sawmill companies.

It seeks at least €270 million in damages. Plus roughly €203 million in interest. Plus further interest still running.

Those are the amounts claimed, as the court itself describes them. Nothing has been awarded to anyone.

Write that down before the numbers travel further than they should.

From at least 1978 to the end of August 2015, the state's forestry authorities sold roundwood for many owners at once.

They marketed about two-thirds of the conifer roundwood offered for sale in Baden-Württemberg.

The wood came from three kinds of owner:

All three went into one offer. One price per sale.

The legal basis was the state forest act. The agreements said the state should sell the wood at the best market price it could get.

None of that is exotic. Pooled marketing exists across Europe. Most small owners cannot reach a sawmill alone.

The court settled one point. The claimant is allowed to bring the claims. Its business model does not break German legal services law.

It also held two things about the wood itself.

The state and the municipalities acted as businesses when they sold it. And the bundling counted as agreements or concerted practice under EU competition law.

Then the court stopped.

It said the lower court could not simply assume competition had been restricted. The record does not show what the agreements actually said. Nor the economic and legal context around them.

The court asked what would have happened without the bundling.

More competition? Or simply less wood on the market?

Municipal owners might not have harvested and sold at all. Doing it alone may not have been worth the effort.

Nobody has answered that. Stuttgart now has to.

The court wants findings on three more things. Whether staff acted deliberately or carelessly. Whether the claimed timber purchases actually happened. And whether the bundling probably raised the price.

The Cartel Office first acted eighteen years ago. There is still no final answer.

If you sell through a pooled arrangement: read the agreement. Find out who sets the price and how. Most owners have never seen the document. (Reading a marketing agreement in German and working out your own position is exactly what a ForestryBriefing is for — see below.)

If you are a municipal forest owner: the court treated municipalities as businesses when selling wood. That is a legal category, not a criticism. It changes which rules apply to the selling.

If you buy roundwood: the counterfactual is now formally open. Would separate selling have given you more wood, or less? It is worth having your own answer ready.

If you value forests: the sales channel is a valuation input. Pooling affects price realisation, selling cost and liquidity. Those sit inside the number, not beside it.

Nothing has been decided. That is worth saying twice in one issue.

What has happened is that a court has asked, in public, what joint marketing does to a market. Most of Europe sells wood this way. Very few of us have ever had to answer that question.

Stuttgart will answer it eventually. The useful work is reading your own arrangement first. Sources: Bundesgerichtshof press release No. 134/2026, 28 July 2026 | Full judgment, KZR 11/24 (PDF)

It nearly did not. That part is worth thirty seconds.

The 50% Section 338 duty was set for 19 August. Hours before it hit, a proclamation paused it for three days.

Talks then broke down late on Friday 21 August. Prime Minister Mark Carney suspended the negotiations. He recalled the team to Ottawa and said Canada would retaliate dollar for dollar.

The duty took effect at 12:01 a.m. Eastern on 22 August 2026.

One detail decides who pays. It applies to goods entered for consumption at or after that moment. Entry timing controls this, not the sailing date.

A truck that left Canada on Friday can still be caught. Entry is what counts.

USMCA origin does not exempt covered goods.

US Customs issued implementation guidance CSMS #69606660 late on 21 August. A senior administration official put the affected trade at roughly USD 20 billion a year.

Why it matters: We set out which products are covered in EFP #113. That analysis stands. What changed on Friday is that it became real.

The takeaway: If you have goods moving, check entry dates rather than sailing dates. Then start the two-quarter clock on redirection. We will come back to it when there are volumes to look at, not before.

Sources: CBP guidance CSMS #69606660, 21 August 2026 | Troutman Pepper Locke — three-day suspension of Section 338 duties | GHY International — what Canadian exporters should check

PEFC has three things open right now. They close within a week of each other.

Today, 25 August. The public consultation on the revised PEFC EUDR due diligence module closes. It opened on 27 July.

The revision updates the standard for the EUDR simplification. It brings in new terms. Micro and small primary operators. Downstream operators. Simplified declarations.

Tomorrow, 26 August. The PEFC 2026 Market Survey closes.

Monday, 31 August. Nominations for PEFC working groups and task forces close.

Why it matters: Standards get written by whoever turns up. Consultation is the only window where the wording still moves.

The takeaway: If you hold a PEFC chain of custody certificate, this module is the document you will work from. Comment today if you have anything to say. If today is too tight, aim at the nominations instead. That is where next year's wording gets decided.

Sources: PEFC EUDR page | Consultation announcement | 2026 Market Survey | Call for nominations

On 21 August the Commission's Deforestation Team confirmed that the fifth iteration of the EUDR FAQs is now available in every EU language.

There is also a targeted correction to the English version. It is reflected in all the other languages.

The Commission's own newsletter names the four places affected. FAQ 3.1.1. FAQ 3.7. And the headings of FAQ 3.2 and FAQ 4.9.

Two honest caveats. The correction is announced in that newsletter, not flagged on the portal page itself. And the document on the portal carries an April 2026 version date. Read the document before relying on any specific wording.

Why it matters: FAQs are not law. But competent authorities read them, and so do auditors. A corrected heading can change which question a paragraph is answering.

The takeaway: If you have quoted an EUDR FAQ in a compliance file, check those four entries against the current version. Ten minutes now beats an argument in December.

Sources: European Commission — FAQ on EUDR implementation | DG ENV Deforestation Team newsletter, 21 August 2026

Read your own timber marketing agreement. Twenty minutes.

The Big Story is about a court trying to work out what one pooling arrangement actually did. You can find out what yours does this afternoon.

Then spend five minutes on the PEFC consultation if you hold a chain of custody certificate. It closes today.

Most owners will find the arrangement is fine and fairly run. That is a good outcome. It is still worth knowing rather than assuming.

A neighbour reads a headline with the word cartel in it. Then they ask you about your forest.

Right now — what do you say?

If the answer isn't ready, the Playbook is.

How your wood is marketed is a valuation input. Not an administrative detail.

Jointly or separately. Uniform price or negotiated. Each choice moves price realisation, selling cost and liquidity. Most valuations never show you where.

I wrote the Forest-Investment Dictionary with Danish forest economist Anders Tærø Nielsen. It has 151 pages, 11 chapters, 14 printable tools, and 3 calculators. Investors learn to read a forest. Foresters learn to read a term sheet.

When the market turns, the people who can read the numbers make the better calls. The price is €99. Get yours below.

The brief is free. The briefing is not.

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Until Thursday!

Wish you all the best: Peter

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