We discuss the main Theories of Harm in EU merger control and their evolution since the 1990s. We present stylised facts and trends using data extracted from EU merger decisions by natural language processing tools. EU merger policy has adapted over time, both in terms of legislation and...

This paper applies an intuitive approach based on stock market data to a unique dataset of large concentrations during the period 1990–2002 to assess the effectiveness of European merger control. The basic idea is to relate announcement and decision abnormal returns. Under a set of four...

For a long time it has been commonly perceived that the decisions of the European Commission appraising mergers have, for many reasons, not been fully subjected to substantive judicial review. However, this familiar criticism now seems to have been partly addressed by recent developments, for...

This handbook chapter appears in Antitrust Law & Economics (Keith Hylton, ed. 2010). It describes the role of market concentration in the legal framework for the antitrust review of horizontal mergers and evaluates the extent to which modern economic analysis supports a role for concentration in...

Scrutiny of potential mergers by the European Commission often focuses on unilateral effects or single firm dominance. But some cases have involved concerns over coordinated effects: the concern that the merger could increase the likelihood of consumer harm through tacit collusion by the reduced...

The US Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission receive notification regarding thousands of mergers per year, and must identify, from the entire set of mergers, those that require further investigation. Merger screens are critical to efficient and effective merger enforcement policy,...

The first comment argues that the current economic approach to EU state aid policy tends to become a general control of the effectiveness of all subsidies in the Member States. This goes far beyond the initial intention of the EU competition rules of Art. 87 to 89 EC Treaty. An economic approach...

The co-legislators adopted the Digital Markets Act (DMA) in July 2022. The text is landmark legislation that imposes a list of ex-ante obligations and interdictions on large online platforms acting as “gatekeepers” in some core platform services (CPS). Yet, the DMA also imposes an obligation...

When the Competition Bureau assesses a proposed broadcasting acquisition, its concern is whether the transaction will result in a substantial lessening of competition, typically in media advertising markets. What objectives the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC)...