Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Recent Developments in EU Merger Remedies

2018; Oxford University Press; Volume: 9; Issue: 6 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1093/jeclap/lpy036

2041-7772

Christopher C. H. Cook, Vladimír Novák, Sven Frisch,

Taxation and Legal Issues

This article reflects developments as of December 31, 2017. Halfway through her five-year term as Competition Commissioner, Margrethe Vestager has established a reputation for subjecting mergers to heavy scrutiny.1 Under her tenure, the Commission has effectively prohibited an average of 2.7 mergers per year, compared to just 1.2 under her predecessor Joaquín Almunia,2 and has intervened in 6.8 per cent of notified concentrations, up from 3.9 per cent under Almunia.3 But Commissioner Vestager and her services are acutely aware that intervening in mergers can be fraught with difficulties. As Deputy Director-General Esteva Mosso recently recalled, ‘experience has taught [the Commission] that the potential for things to go wrong is high: the business to be sold as a remedy can be composed of the wrong assets, it can be sold to the wrong purchaser, or the business can deteriorate during the divestiture process, or afterwards.’4 A rigorous approach to remedy design and implementation has therefore taken centre stage in Commissioner Vestager’s merger control policy. In 2017, this translated into four particularly noteworthy trends.