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ARTICLE · 10 AUGUST 2023

GCR EMEA Antitrust Review 2024 – HSF's EU Merger Control Update Now Available Online

Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer LLP
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Members of the Brussels competition team have written their annual chapter as a contribution to the latest edition of the highly-regarded Global Competition Review (GCR)...

United KingdomAntitrust/Competition Law
Kyriakos Fountoukakos
Kyriakos Fountoukakos
Camille Puech-Baron
Camille Puech-Baron
Abhijeet Sinha
Abhijeet Sinha
Nika Nonveiller
Nika Nonveiller

Members of the Brussels competition team have written their annual chapter as a contribution to the latest edition of the highly-regarded Global Competition Review (GCR) EMEA Antitrust Review, which provides a comprehensive summary of key recent EU merger control developments.

This year's chapter is titled European Union: M&A slowdown coincides with the new regulations and substantive revisions to merger control procedures and covers key jurisdictional, procedural and substantive developments in EU merger control from May 2022 to April 2023, including:

  • Jurisdictional developments: Review of below-threshold transactions by the Commission remained an area of debate primarily due to the CJEU's decision in Towercast. The CJEU held that below-threshold transactions can be reviewed by national competition authorities under the rules prohibiting the abuse of a dominant position following the completion of the transaction. Subsequently, the Belgian Competition

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