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New guidance on merger control published by Bundeskartellamt

By  |  March 30, 2012

The Bundeskartellamt has published a new guidance on merger control. The guidance “explains the criteria by which the authority decides whether a project can be cleared or whether it raises competition concerns.” Unlike the 2000 guidance, Principles of Interpretation of Market Dominance, this guidance does not have a checklist. Instead, it describes an approach of considering all relevant market conditions.

Although the 8th Amendment of the Act against Restraints of Competition (Gesetz gegen Wettbewerbsbeschränkungen, GWB) replaces the dominance test with the SIEC test (“significant impediment to effective competition”), market dominance nonetheless remains the primary factor in considering mergers.

Full content: Bundeskartellamt Press Release