Brussels ‘wrong’ to block French merger

The European Commission's Directorate-General for Competition suffered a serious blow on 22 October 2002 when the European Court of First Instance annulled both the Commission's decision to block the merger of French companies Schneider and Legrand and a second Commission decision ordering that the two companies should separate. The ruling is likely to increase pressure on Mario Monti, European Commissioner for Competition, to make radical changes to European merger rules which have been criticised as unfair by some companies and lawyers.

The Court attacked the Commission's conclusions that the merger would have harmed competition in several Member States and found that the Commission had committed a 'serious infringement of the rights of the defence' by failing to clearly advise the companies what its concerns were. The decision will allow Schneider to resume its bid for Legrand - the first time a Court decision has allowed a company to resume a deal.

The judgment said the Commission was right to conclude the merged group would have had too big a share of the electrical market in France.

http://curia.europa.eu/en/actu/communiques/cp02/aff/cp0284en.htm http://curia.europa.eu/en/actu/communiques/cp02/aff/cp0284en.htm

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