Press Release: Mergers: Commission approves takeover of BOC by Linde, subject to conditions

The European Commission ON 6 June 2006 approved under the EU Merger Regulation the proposed takeover of the UK-based BOC by the German company Linde. Both companies were active in industrial and specialty gases. The initial market investigation had found that the proposed acquisition could have created significant competition problems by removing an important competitor of Linde on a number of gas markets. These competition concerns were removed by the remedy package offered by the parties which includes the divestiture of Linde’s industrial gases business in the UK and BOC’s industrial and specialty gases business in Poland. The approval was further conditional on divesting several helium wholesale supply contracts of both Linde and BOC. In addition, Linde was to break its structural link with Air Liquide in a number of Asian Joint Ventures. In the light of these commitments, the Commission concluded that the proposed operation would not significantly impede effective competition in the European Economic Area (EEA) or any substantial part of it.