Summary
LobbyControl is the German lobbying-watchdog non-profit that investigates corporate influence over German and EU policy, publishes research on the German Lobbyregister, and runs public campaigns against corporate capture of regulation. Co-founders Timo Lange and Aurel Eschmann are the principal public voices on German lobbying reform.
Body
LobbyControl’s research practice combines investigative journalism (FOIA requests, registry-based research, leaked-document analysis) with academic-policy study. The organisation’s output includes: data-driven rankings of lobby expenditure by sector; investigations into specific legislative fights (TTIP-adjacent lobbying, automotive-industry lobbying on climate, agro-chemical lobbying); and methodological reports on how to use the Lobbyregister as an investigative tool. [source: lobbycontrol]
The German Lobbying Register Act (LobbyRG, in force Jan 2022, reformed Jan 2024) is treated by LobbyControl as a research resource: search filters on funding sources, lobbyist-meeting declarations, and third-country funding allow researchers and journalists to trace and reverse-engineer lobbyist ties. The 2025 Eschmann/Lange analysis is the methodology reference for using the register as an investigative tool. [source: lobbycontrol]
LobbyControl is a member of ALTER-EU and the Schöpflin-Stiftung grantee network; the watchdog shares methodologies and joint investigations with peer organisations across Europe. [source: lobbycontrol]
Use it for
Citing German and EU lobbying-investigation methodology; using the German Lobbyregister as an investigative tool in a research project; reading LobbyControl’s sectoral lobby-expenditure rankings for benchmarking corporate-campaign work; framing public campaigns against corporate capture of regulation with empirical anchors.