Assessment of legal regulation on merger control18/12/08 / cata_european-union-news
The European Commission commenced a public consultation concerning the functioning of Regulation No. 139/2004 on the control of concentrations between undertakings. The purpose thereof is to assess application rules after four years of existing practical application, i.e. setting of the threshold value and criteria as well as mechanisms of transfer of powers concerning assessment of the connection between the Commission and national antimonopoly authorities.
The regulation imposes on the Commission to present an assessment report to the Council concerning the above rules by 1 July 2009, on the basis of which regulation of such rules can be proposed.
The amended regulation, in comparison with the previous regulation, strengthened the main aspect of communitarian rules on control of concentration of undertakings termed one-stop shops, where the concentration of undertakings with a communitarian dimension (such as supranational mergers or acquisitions) are assessed exclusively by the Commission.
Simultaneously, the system of referring cases was improved. The new regulation allows parties to a merger/concentration to refer cases to the Commission for assessment even if it has no communitarian dimension, i.e. the required threshold values are not fulfilled but the merger/concentration is subject to approval in at least three member countries. On the contrary, in situations where the concentration of enterprise despite fulfilment of the notification criteria set forth by the Regulation affects the competition mostly in a single EU member state and does not have significant cross-border effects, the involved parties may apply for the Commission to refer the case to the relevant national antimonopoly authority.
In addition to the analysis of instigations from the public consultancy, the assessment report reflects comments from national antimonopoly authorities and the Commission’s own experience from the application of the regulation. The existing knowledge of the Commission indicates that both the setting of threshold values and principles of referring cases have proven to work well in practice.