EU Merger Regulation Reform: Capturing Minority Acquisitions

Riccardo Croce, Anastasia A. Usova

Currently, the EU Competition Authority, the European Commission, may only review transactions that lead to a change of control over an undertaking, leaving minority acquisitions outside the scope of EU merger control. The news on the expected reform raises some business concerns since, if adopted, the reform may result in significant administrative burden for both the EU and non-EU (including Ukrainian) companies that have sales triggering the financial thresholds in the EU. Additionally, such reform may lead to further review of merger control laws by national competition authorities across the EU and, in the medium term, may influence other competition authorities that follow EU practice (e.g. Serbia, Turkey, PRC, Hong Kong, and UAE)…