International Law

Non-horizontal Merger Guidelines Published

By Bartolus

The Commission has published its new Guidelines on how it will examine mergers which are not "horizontal" ones - that is to say mergers of undertakings engaged on different relevant markets under its powers conferred by Regulation 139/2004.

These new Guidelines state that they will apply to both "vertical" mergers that involve companies operating at different levels of the supply chain and "conglomerate" mergers - mergers of firms that are in a relationship which is neither horizontal (as competitors in the same relevant market) nor vertical (as suppliers or customers).

It would seem from these new Guidelines that the Commission's attitude is fairly benign and will not be too obstructive, as three recent non-horizontal cases show (TomTom/TeleAtlas, Itema Holding/BarcoVision and Nokia/NavTeq).

In practice, this in an important new document and complements the Guidelines on horizontal mergers.

Full post as published by EU Law Blog on October 20, 2008 (boomark / email).