EU Merger Control

Hear directly from Guillaume Loriot, Deputy Director General, Mergers, DG Competition, European Commission on:

• Their current priorities in merger control 
• What is on the horizon for merger control

Review recent significant merger control decisions and their practical implications, including: 

• CK Telecoms & ‘Gap Cases’
• Towercast ECJ Decision
• Microsoft/Activision Blizzard merger
• Broadcom/Vmware merger
• Amazon/iRobot
• Illumina/Grail saga

Share strategies for managing multijurisdictional mergers in light of the greater divergence of approaches by the regulators: 

• UK, EU & US approaches 
• Expansion of the EC’s/NCA's merger control toolkit with respect to non-reportable transactions
• Interplay between the NCA and the Commission

Examine the interplay between the DMA, DSA & UK Digital Markets and the Competition & Consumer Bill with merger control:

• How will mergers involving undertakings subject to the DMA and DSA regulations be assessed?
• How does Article 22 interact with DMA?
• Approaches to "go to market" of innovation
• Theories of harm in digital markets

Consider the interplay of foreign direct investment and foreign subsidies regulation with merger control: 

• Review of FDI prohibition decisions
• Update on foreign subsidies regulation and the implications for mergers
• Procedural issues, including timelines
• How to best structure transactions to navigate the new complexity

• New EU simplified merger control procedure
• Update on amendments to national regimes around Europe
• Gun-jumping: lessons learnt from Altice and other decisions
• Handling forensic document request
• Misleading information