Risks and opportunities This section provides important additional information and explains recent changes in the risks and opportunities as described in the combined management report for the 2018 financial year (2018 Annual Report). Readers are also referred to the Disclaimer at the end of this report. Operational risks The risk significance in the risk category “Risks relating to IT/NT network operations, United States” was regraded from medium to low in the first quarter of 2019. This was due not only to the geographical redundancies that were put in place, but also to the adequate disaster recovery functions for the billing systems for customer services, which were rated as functional in tests. The risk is thus mitigated and will no longer be reported. Litigation Lawsuits filed by partnering publishers of telephone directories. In the lawsuits filed by the partnering publishers of telephone directories, two of the suits suspended in the first instance were withdrawn after the already reported ruling of the Federal Court of Justice in January 2019 went in our favor. As a result, ten proceedings are still pending with a total claimed amount of approximately EUR 70 million plus interest. For nine of these suits, appeal proceedings are still in process with the German Federal Court of Justice while one claim remains suspended. Proceedings before the administrative court were also brought to a close after the remaining two plaintiffs withdrew their respective suits under administrative law. Anti-trust proceedings Claims for damages against Slovak Telekom following a European Commission decision to impose fines. On February 21, 2019, Slovak Telekom and Deutsche Telekom filed an appeal with the European Union Court of Justice against the ruling by the General Court of the European Union of December 13, 2018 in which the fines imposed by the European Commission were partially overturned and the level of the fines reduced. Assessment of the aggregate risk position At the time of preparing this report, neither our risk management system nor our management could identify any material risks to the continued existence of Deutsche Telekom AG or a significant Group company as a going concern.
