Press Release: Mergers: Commission launches procedure against Poland for preventing Unicredit/HVB merger

The European Commission on 8 March 2006 announced that it had come to the preliminary conclusion that the Polish Government had violated the EU’s Merger Regulation (Article 21) which gives the Commission exclusive powers to take decisions on mergers of a Community dimension. In particular, the Commission considered that the Polish Government had encroached on the Commission’s exclusive competence by requiring Italian bank Unicredit to divest its shares in Polish bank BPH, despite the fact that the European Commission had already authorised, on 18 October 2005 (see IP/05/1299), Unicredit’s acquisition of BPH as part of its takeover of German bank HVB.

• Primary Source

European Commission: DG Competition: Merger Cases: M.3894 http://ec.europa.eu/comm/competition/mergers/cases/index/m77.html#m_3894

European Commission: Press Release: IP/06/276, Free movement of capital: Commission opens infringement procedure against Poland in context of UniCredit/HBV merger, 8.3.06 http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/06/276&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

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