On 27 June 2019, the European Commission (Commission) announced
it had fined Japanese camera and printer manufacturer, Canon,
€28m for partially implementing its 2016 acquisition of
Toshiba Medical Systems prior to the transaction being notified to
the Commission and, as a result, before it had been formally given
competition clearance. The focus of concern was the use of a
so-called 'warehousing structure' – a two-step
process during which the target company is temporarily
"parked" with an intermediary buyer with the intention,
the Commission claims, of circumventing EU merger control rules
(rules requiring merging parties to notify and suspend
implementation of their transactions pending approval).
