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Merger cases


Publications, press-releases and Commission decisions on individual cases

Page generated on : 2009-11-20




List of merger cases


Some definitions

There are several types of merger cases: those dealt with under the Council Regulation (EC) No 139/2004 (in force since 1 May 2004), generally referred to as the EC Merger Regulation, those dealt with under the “old” Council Regulation (EEC) No 4064/89, as last amended by Council Regulation (EC) No 1310/97, and those dealt with under Article 66 of the former Treaty establishing the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC Treaty).

The publication process

  1. "Phase I" decisions

    An announcement of a Phase I decision is published in the OJ in all Community languages; the full text of all final Phase I decisions (Art. 6(1)(a) and (b) EC Merger Regulation) is published on the Commission's website, but only in the original language in which the parties notified.

  2. "Phase II" decisions

    As of May 2004, a summary of final decisions of phase II investigations (Art. 8 EC Merger Regulation) is published in the OJ and therefore available in all Community languages. The translation requires additional time.

    The Commission will continue to publish the full text of final Phase II decisions on its website in English, French and German (as well as in the language of the proceeding if different from those three languages).

Public versions of merger decisions are usually available several weeks after the adoption of the decision only. This is because the parties have to agree on the deletion of business secrets from the text of the decision.

Decisions based on Article 8 of the Merger regulation are published in the Official Journal series L in all languages and their translation requires additional time.

NB: Due to a computer program change, the Merger Task Force has started to put decisions on its webpage for old cases where decisions were taken long before publication started via the Competition DG website. The aim is to improve the service rendered to the public.