Commissioner Almunia Outlines Trends in EU Merger Control

Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia, has this week discussed current trends in EU merger control. He notes that mergers and acquisitions are an important part of a healthy economy and a competitive Europe and that the European Commission ('Commission') will only intervene when the proposed mergers create competition problems leading to higher prices or lower innovation. 

It was stressed that the Commission does not seek to block the emergence of companies of sufficient scale to take on global competitors.  Indeed there have only been two merger prohibitions in the last eight years (and only 20 in total since the Merger Regulation came into force in 1990).  In those cases, the Commission was generally not able to find remedies with the parties to resolve competition problems.