ZWeR 2015, 69
EU merger review of the acquisition of non-controlling minority shareholdings: where to now?
Contents
- I. The current situation
- 1. Non-controlling minority shareholdings and their potentially harmful effects
- 1.1 Reduction of competitive pressure between competitors (horizontal unilateral effects)
- 1.2 Facilitation of coordination among competitors (horizontal coordinated effects)
- 1.3 The potential for limiting competitors’ access to inputs or customers (vertical effects)
- 1.4 Implications of the economic literature
- 2. Experience in jurisdictions which can review structural links
- 2.1 Germany
- 2.2 The United Kingdom
- 2.3 Austria
- 2.4 The United States
- 2.5 Application of national merger review to structural links in practice
- 3. Structural links under EU law
- 3.1 EUMR
- 3.2 Inadequacy of Art. 101 and 102 TFEU as a tool for controlling problematic structural links
- II. The case for a reform of the EUMR with respect to structural links
- 1. Concerns regarding the proportionality of introducing a review of structural links under the EUMR
- 2. Potential benefits of introducing a review of structural links under the EUMR
- III. Review of structural links under the EUMR: jurisdictional, substantive and procedural issues
- 1. The definition of a concentration
- 2. The substantive test
- 3. The procedure applicable to structural links
- IV. Conclusion
- *
- *)The authors are respectively a Partner in the Brussels office and a Senior Associate in the London office of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP. The views expressed in this article are personal to the authors.
- 1
- 1)European Commission, White Paper: Towards more effective EU merger control, Brussels, COM (2014) 449 (the 2014 White Paper). Available at: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:52014DC0449&from=EN.
- 2
- 2)Council Regulation (EC) No 139/2004 of 20 January 2004 on the control of concentrations between undertakings, [2002] OJ L 24/1.
- 3
- 3)Papers from the Commission’s 2013 public consultation, Towards more effective EU merger control, are available at http://ec.europa.eu/competition/consultations/2013_merger_control/.
- 4
- 4)European Commission, Commission Staff Working Document Accompanying the document White Paper Towards more effective EU merger control, Brussels, SWD(2014) 221 (the 2014 Staff Working Document). Available at: http://ec.europa.eu/competition/consultations/2014_merger_control/staff_working_document_en.pdf.
- 5
- 5)European Commission, Commission Staff Working Document Impact Assessment Accompanying the document White Paper Towards more effective EU merger control, Brussels, SWD(2014) 217 (the Impact Assessment). Available at: http://ec.europa.eu/competition/consultations/2014_merger_control/impact_assessment_en.pdf.
- 6
- 6)Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, “Thoughts on merger reform and market definition”, Keynote address at Studienvereinigung Kartellrecht, Brussels, 12 March 2015. Available at: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/2014-2019/vestager/announcements/thoughts-merger-reform-and-market-definition_en.
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