Paris

French Merger Control: The New Guidelines

Antitrust Procedure Workshop organized by Concurrences in partnership with Clifford Chance.

KEYWORDS

REVISION OF THE MERGER GUIDELINES: CONSOLIDATION OF THE FOUR YEARS’ EXPERIENCE IN MERGER CONTROL

Bruno Lasserre (Chairman of the Competition Authority)

Balance sheet: a few figures

Since the creation of the Competition Authority, three figures reflect its sustained and proportionate intervention in the field of mergers:

  • the significant figure of 773 merger decisions.
  • the 4.1% rate of interventions with commitments or injunctions, which is not a significant rate, especially as no refusal decision has been adopted since 2009.
  • nearly 50% of simplified decisions in 2012.

The revision project

The guidelines (ld) were revised following a participatory procedure which resulted in the publication of a first draft, followed by a public consultation, at the end of which various opinions were expressed, some of which were followed by the authority, and a public round table.

Objectives pursued

There are three of them:

Photos © Léo-Paul Ridet.

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