European Merger Guidelines In Practice

According to the European Merger Guidelines, "for the Commission to take account of efficiency claims in its assessment of the merger, the efficiencies have to benefit consumers, be merger-specific and be verifiable. These conditions are cumulative". It is up to the parties to verify the existence of efficiencies. Examples of efficiencies specific to non-horizontal mergers include the 'internalisation of double mark-ups which allows the integrated firm to profitably increase output on the downstream market; furthermore better coordination of production and distribution processes, which leads to savings on inventory costs; and additionally the creation of incentives with regard to investments in new products, production processes and marketing. Price efficiencies and non-price efficiencies have been critically assessed below by using examples on TomTom / Tele Atlas and Nokia / NAVTEQ transactions.