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"Introduction" [2006] ELECD 86; in IIzkovitz, Fabienne; Meiklejohn, Roderick (eds), "European Merger Control" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2006)

Book Title: European Merger Control

Editor(s): IIzkovitz, Fabienne; Meiklejohn, Roderick

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781845424916

Section Title: Introduction

Number of pages: 9

Extract:

Introduction
For 15 years, the EU's merger control system, unlike most others in the
world, offered only minimal possibilities for taking efficiency gains into
account as a mitigating factor that might offset the anti-competitive effects
of a merger. This changed in January 2004, when the EU Council of
Ministers adopted a new merger regulation that for the first time explicitly
recognizes the possibility of an efficiency defence. Shortly afterwards, the
European Commission published its first guidelines for the assessment of
horizontal mergers, explaining how it intends to apply the new regulation.
In Part VII of the guidelines, the Commission outlines how efficiencies will
be incorporated into merger appraisals.
What are the pros and cons of the efficiency defence? How do other
merger control systems deal with efficiencies? What impact will the change
in policy have on merging companies and the economy as a whole? How
can the investigation process be organized to accommodate the analysis of
efficiency gains? What are the main theoretical and practical problems
which arise when anti-competitive effects have to be weighed against
efficiency gains and how can they be resolved? This book aims to answer
these questions or at least to indicate fruitful lines of further enquiry.
Although the old merger regulation included `the development of tech-
nical and economic progress' among the criteria to be considered in the
appraisal of mergers, it also stipulated that such progress could be taken
into account only if it was to the consumer's advantage and ...