to the merger. We show that a PPO reduces the minimal synergy level necessary to make a merger beneficial for consumers …. It follows that an antitrust authority ignoring existing PPOs when evaluating merger proposals (which reflects the … current EU merger control regime) invites sneaky takeovers: Acquiring firms strategically use PPOs prior to a full merger …

that would prevent a merger from harming consumers for 1,014 mergers affecting 12,325 antitrust markets scrutinized by the … concerns about the Commission's merger enforcement being too lax. …