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EU Merger Control Procedure – A Brief Overview

Abstract

This paper provides an introductory overview of the EU merger control procedure, explaining the main terms and principles and showing the practical implications on notifiable transactions. 1. Legal Framework The EU merger control rules consist of a set of EU law provisions. The most relevant ones are the EU Merger Regulation and the Implementing Regulation. These Regulations are complemented by notices and other explanatory documents that will be mentioned in this paper where necessary. An important and very instructive document from a practitioner’s point of view is the Notice on Best Practices on the conduct of EU merger control proceedings (‘Best Practice Notice’), which explains the main steps of the EU merger control procedure.

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Author

Portrait image of Thomas Wiese
Thomas Wiese
Case Handler, Directorate-General of Competition of the European Commission, Unit C-5 Mergers, Belgium

Thomas Wiese is a German-qualified competition lawyer and he was case-handler at Unit C-5 of DG Competition (Markets and cases II: Information, Communication and Media, Mergers) until February 2021. Thomas has worked on competition law cases both in the private sector and at the European Commission for more than 15 years. Since 1 March 2021 Thomas works at the European Parliament.

Company

Directorate-General of Competition of the European Commission, Unit C-5 Mergers

The Directorate-General of Competition is the competition law enforcement authority of the European Commission.

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