EC Adopts New Merger Guidelines

By Yannis Virvilis
of McDermott Will & Emery/Stanbrook LLP
published in 12/15/07 EuroWatch p. 3

The European Commission has adopted the final text of the long awaited Non-Horizontal Merger Guidelines. The Commission had previously launched a public consultation with the publication of the draft guidelines at the beginning of the year. The Guidelines apply to vertical mergers between firms that can have a supplier-customer relationship, and also apply to conglomerate mergers where firms are active on closely related markets. The text describes the market conditions that might lead the Commission to have concerns in non-horizontal mergers. In an attempt to increase legal certainty, the text provides a rather low "safe-harbour" of market share (30 per cent) and market concentration (postmerger HHI of 2000), below which it is unlikely that any concerns will arise.

Several articles on this topic appear in the most recent EuroWatch.

To sign up for our free international corporate counsel alerts go here