European Competition Law provides a wide-ranging review of the European rules relating to competition: restrictive agreements, abuse of a dominant position, impact of intellectual property rights, procedure, merger control, State aid.

European Competition Law

Non-horizontal mergers may be either vertical or conglomerate . Vertical mergers involve operators operating at different levels of the production chain. Conglomerate mergers bring together undertakings which are not in the same market, or in an upstream and downstream market and often involve suppliers of complementary products or products that belong to the same product range.
In general, non-ho …

Concept

Non-horizontal mergers may be either vertical or conglomerate . Vertical mergers involve operators operating at different levels of the production chain. Conglomerate mergers bring together undertakings which are not in the same market, or in an upstream and downstream market and often involve suppliers of complementary products or products that belong to the same product range.

In general, non-horizontal mergers affect competition less than horizontal merger - they do not eliminate competition between the merging parties - and are likely to bring about significant efficiencies .

Those two types of mergers can lead to a market foreclosure in the case of a reduction or closure of the access of actual or potential competitors to sources of supply (input foreclosure ) or markets (customer foreclosure) or to inside information. Vertical mergers may lead to the creation or strengthening of buyer power or to situations of economic dependence while conglomerate mergers may foster the implementation of leverage effects or anticompetitive bundling.  

Commission Notice No 2008/C 265/07 of 18 October 2008, Guidelines on the assessment of non-horizontal mergers under the Council Regulation on the control of concentrations between undertakings.

See for example Commission Decision M.4942 of 2 July 2008, Nokia/NAVTEQ, LawLex200900001840JBJ: a vertical concentration which leads to the elimination of double margins is likely to generate efficiency gains for consumers.

In the Commission's wording, "input" means products or services, access to infrastructures or to intellectual property rights.

Commission Decision M.7000 of 10 October 2014, Liberty Global/Ziggo, LawLex201700000676JBJ : a merger which confers a market share of more than 50% on the merged entity of the supply and the acquisition of various of Pay TV channels in the Netherlands, thus increasing the degree of buyer power currently enjoyed by the parties individually, may harm competition given the increased buyer power held as a purchaser of Pay TV channels could allow it to conclude agreements preventing, delaying or hampering the provision of  innovative OTT ( "over-the-top" ) services ), likely to exert a growing competitive constraint on the traditional distribution model of cable TV operators. 

European Competition Law

338. Concept

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Les décisions de justice citées dans ce paragraphe :

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Les notions juridiques connexes

338. Concept

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Les décisions de justice citées dans ce paragraphe :

Sous parties

Les notions juridiques connexes

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au contenu exclusif Livv – juristes d’entreprise