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EU: Commissioner Almunia’s reputation grows continually tougher

By  |  January 16, 2013

Recent reports and interviews given by the European Commission and its Commissioner Almunia are shaping Almunia’s reputation into an increasingly tougher, more ruthless authority, according to analysts. With his recent blocking of a major, nearly $7 billion deal for UPS and TNT to merge – on top of recent comments that Google may not escape without punishment like the search giant did in the US – introduce a difficult year for major merger activity already. According to reports, in his three years as Commissioner, Almunia has already blocked as many merger deals as his predecessor, Neelie Kroes. In a recent report, however, Almunia denies the tough-guy label, noting that he has cleared “hundreds” of mergers in his term, also pointing to statistics to show the majority of mergers that come across the European Commission’s table are cleared.

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