EU in merger sell-off call

The European Commission has revised its guidelines on remedies in merger control in order to ensure that competition concerns are dealt with more effectively and to clarify to companies involved in merger cases how best to address competition concerns. Remedies are modifications to a proposed transaction suggested by the parties involved with a view to eliminating possible competition concerns identified by the Commission.

The main changes announced on the 22 October 2008 include the introduction of a form for submitting information on remedies, details on divestiture and access remedies and clarifications on the role of the Trustee. The Commission has also modernised the Remedies Notice in the light of the revised Merger Regulation (EC) No. 139/2004 (see MEMO/04/9), the Commission's experience in a large number of cases, the Commission Mergers Remedies Study (see IP/05/1327) and recent judgements of the European Courts. The Remedies Notice also takes into account comments received from the public consultation held in 2007 on a draft Notice (see IP/07/544). In addition, the Commission has adopted amendments to the Merger Implementing Regulation (Commission Regulation (EC) No. 802/2004) in line with the changes to the Remedies Notice.

European Commission: Press Release: IP/08/1567: Mergers: Commission revises Remedies Notice and amends Merger Implementing Regulation http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/08/1567&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

European Commission: DG Competition: Mergers: Legislation: Merger Remedies http://ec.europa.eu/comm/competition/mergers/legislation/merger_remedies.html

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