Acquisition of joint control over a pre-existing undertaking: The Court of Justice of the European Union rules that the acquisition of joint control over a pre-existing activity previously exclusively controlled amounts to a merger when the undertaking now jointly controlled is fully-functional (Austrian Asphalt)

*This article is an automatic translation of the original article, provided here for your convenience. Read the original article. On 7 September 2017, the Court of Justice of the European Union delivered a particularly important judgment in the field of merger control, interpreting, in the context of a preliminary question, the concept of "concentration" contained in Article 3 of Regulation 139/2004 on the control of concentrations ("Regulation 139/2004"). The question referred to the Court was the qualification of the formation of joint ventures on the basis of pre-existing activities. The facts, as reported by the referring court, are as follows : Teerag Asdag AG, a company of the Porr Group, owns and operates an asphalt mixing plant in Mürzzuschlag (contrary to what the products