Corporate & Securities Law

DOJ Conditions Approval of the Thomson/Reuters Transaction on Divestitures

By Matthew S. Wild

February 19, 2008.  The Antitrust Division conditioned approval of Thomson Corporation’s $17 billion acquisition of Reuters Group PLC on divestitures of financial datasets and licensing of related intellectual property.  Thomson and Reuters compete head-to-head in providing three types of financial data used by investment professional to make investment decision.  The Antitrust Division analyzed three relevant product markets — fundamentals data, earning estimates data and aftermarket research reports.  The parties combined market shares post-merger would have been more than 50 percent and up to 90 percent.  The Antitrust Division required Thomson to sell the relevant datasets and license its relevant intellectual property to a suitable buyer.  The consent agreement contains a hold separate provision but did not require the parties to “fix-it-first.”  The DOJ and EU Competition Commission cooperated in their investigations.  The EU required different remedies that had no bearing in the U.S.  

Full post as published by Antitrust Commentary on February 21, 2008 (boomark / email).