Jussi Koivusalo, Emilia Rosenblad

European Competition and Regulatory Law Review, Volume 6 (2022), Issue 3, Page 284 - 289

Case T-227/21 Illumina, Inc. v European Commission, Judgment of the General Court (Third Chamber, Extended Composition) of 13 July 2022 The General Court held that the European Commission may accept a referral to investigate a concentration that is not subject to national merger control rules even when the referring Member State has introduced a merger control regime of its own. It also held that a concentration is 'made known' to a Member State pursuant to the second subparagraph of Article 22(1) EUMR only when sufficient information enabling a preliminary assessment of the conditions laid down in the first subparagraph of the same Article is actively submitted to it.

Nicholas Levy, Andris Rimsa, Bianca Buzatu

European Competition and Regulatory Law Review, Volume 5 (2021), Issue 4, Page 364 - 379

In March 2021, in an effort to secure jurisdiction over transactions that might otherwise escape review under EU and national merger control rules, the European Commission (EC) published guidance encouraging Member State competition authorities to ask the EC to examine potentially anti-competitive concentrations that fall below national merger control thresholds. To date, in a decision that is under appeal to the General Court, the EC’s new guidance has been applied only once to refer the Illumina/Grail transaction to the EC. More generally, the EC’s new guidance has proven controversial, revealing divergences between certain Member State antitrust agencies and the EC. Keywords: merger notification thresholds, EU Merger Regulation, killer acquisitions, interagency coordination