The Dutch District Court of Rotterdam annuls the Competition Authority’s decision to conditionally approve the acquisition of a distributor of educational materials by a publisher and orders an assessment of the anticompetitive effects of potential product bundling by the merging parties (Iddink / Sanoma Learning)

The District Court of Rotterdam has annulled a decision in which the Dutch Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) approved the acquisition of Iddink by Sanoma Learning. This is the second time in 12 months that an approval decision by the relevant Dutch authorities has been annulled by the court. The legal consequences for the transactions remain unclear. The merging parties On 1 October 2019 Sanoma Learning completed the acquisition of Iddink, a distributor of schoolbooks. Sanoma Learning is active in the field of media and education. Through its subsidiary Malmberg, Sanoma Learning is a publisher of (digital) educational materials for secondary education. Iddink is a distributor of (digital) educational materials. Iddink also owns Magister, an electronic learning environment (ELO)