The European Court of Justice has ruled illegal a German law which protected Volkswagen from takeover.

The decision, announced this morning, will remove the hurdle which has prevented Porsche from gaining more control of the volume manufacturer. Porsche is already VW’s largest stakeholder, with 31% of VW Group, and wants to “significantly increase” its shareholding.

But the law had capped Porsche’s voting rights to 20% regardless of the size of the stake, the same as the German state of Lower Saxony, VW’s second largest shareholder.

Germany “failed to demonstrate why such a position has to be maintained in order to protect the general interests of minority shareholders,” the European Court of Justice ruled. The decision cannot be appealed.