Eric Paroche

On 18 May 2022, the General Court of the European Union rejected Wieland-Werke’s appeal against the European Commission decision to prohibit its proposed acquisition of (i) Aurubis Rolled Products (“ARP”), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Aurubis, and (ii) Schwermetall, a 50/50 joint-venture (...)

Almost four months after its creation and after 48 hearings, the hearings, the Commission of Inquiry into the concentration of of the media in France presented the conclusions of its report of its report to the Senate on March 29, 2022. Created at the initiative of the Socialist, Ecologist (...)

In Decision No. 19-DCC-157 of August 12, 2019 [the " Salto Decision"], the French Competition Authority had validated, subject to conditions, the creation by the TF1, M6 and France Télévisions groups of Salto, a full-function joint venture. Context and procedure Salto is active in the (...)

The Illumina/Grail (Case M.10188) saga continues before the European Commission [the “Commission”] and the General Court with fierce confrontation in relation to jurisdictional issues and standstill obligation. This transaction was already set to become an unprecedented case as it is the (...)

Commitments - Telecommunications: The French Competition Authority authorizes, subject to conditions, an acquisition in the sector of the operation of passive mobile telecommunications infrastructures (Aut. conc., dec. n° 21-DCC-197 of October 25, 2021 relating to the acquisition of exclusive (...)

Although authorized after an unconditional phase 1 review, Vivendi ’s acquisition of the magazine group Prisma Media has given rise to interesting developments in a sector characterized by ever-increasing convergence between the various advertising markets, which involves the development of (...)

On 26 March 2021, the European Commission [the "Commission"] published its guidance on merger referrals under Article 22 of Regulation 139/2004 [the "Merger Regulation"]. Contrary to its past practice, the Commission now accepts to review referrals for which neither the national nor the (...)

The LDC group is one of the main French players in the poultry slaughtering sector and the marketing of poultry meat and products made from poultry meat. It markets its products under the Le Gaulois, Marie, Loué and Maître Coq brands. Context elements The transaction in question concerns (...)

In March 2021, announcement that the European Commission [the “Commission”] would review its assessment of referrals under Article 22 of Regulation n° 139/2004 [the “Merger Regulation”] has attracted much attention from practitioners and academics. Under this new approach, the Commission will (...)

The acquisition of the 554 Leader Price stores and 2 Casino stores by Aldi [the "Operation"] was first notified to the European Commission before being referred, at the request of the notifying party, to the Competition Authority ([the "Authority"] on 4 June 2020. Context elements In view (...)

Case law on merger control is all the more scrutinised as litigation is rare. However, the year 2020 has enabled the Court of First Instance to rule on several occasions on the application of Regulation 139/2004 by the European Commission in prohibition decisions. In particular, by the CK (...)

On April 25th, 2020, Boeing and Embraer announced that they abandoned their planned partnership which had a long stop date of April 24th, 2020. The partnership consisted in the creation of two joint ventures: (i) a first joint venture solely controlled by Boeing covering Embraer’s commercial (...)

The Commission has recently decided on two transactions in the pharmaceutical sector, both of which have been cleared subject to divestitures: the acquisition of Allergan by Abbvie and the acquisition of Pfizer’s consumer health division by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). Although they concern very (...)

In the context of the acquisition of sole control of Darty by Fnac, which was authorised by the French Competition Authority by a decision of 27 July 2016Fnac had undertaken to sell six stores in Paris and the Paris region before 1 August 2017. However, for three of these stores, namely the (...)

On 1 October 2019, the European Commission authorised the merger between two global manufacturers of flat-rolled aluminium products: Novelis, the US subsidiary of the Indian group Hindalco, and Aleris, a US group also specialising in the production of semi-finished aluminium products. Both (...)

Warehousing – or portage – transactions, which consist in parking the target with an interim buyer in view of its onward sale to the ultimate acquirer, are no exceptions to the prohibition of gun jumping: this is, in a nutshell, the conclusion drawn by the European Commission in its decision (...)

In January 2017, the State published a call for tenders for the operation of CDG Express, the future direct rail link between Paris (Gare de l’Est station) and Paris-Charles de Gaulle airport, for a period of 15 years. In November 2018, the State awarded the service concession to the (...)

On November 7, 2018, the Commission approved a concentration whereby the two German car manufacturers Daimler and BMW planned to pool their mobility service businesses, including in particular their car sharing services. The two German car makers’ project consists in the creation of six (...)

On 4 May 2018, the European Commission approved the acquisition by United Technologies Corporation (’UTC’) of the whole of Rockwell Collins, after a phase I investigation but subject to important structural remedies. UTC is a provider of high-technology products and services for the building (...)

The Altice/Numericable decision from the French Competition Authority is striking in two respects: it is the highest fine (€80 million) ever imposed by a competition authority for gun jumping and one of the very first decisions in Europe to outline the rules applicable to the acquirer and a (...)