Mergers and Merger Remedies in the EU

Decisions prohibiting mergers always make the headlines. In practice, they are rare. The European Commission, for example, imposes remedies about ten times more often. Merger remedies are not only much more frequent;they are also more complex: predicting with reasonable certainty which elements will restore competition after completion of a merger and its

related remedies is often a challenge. The concerns and the toolkits used when devising and monitoring remedies are close to those used in the regulatory field, for example when a public authority privatizes a state-owned (monopoly) business or auctions licences for new activities. Merger remedies can therefore blur the distinction between competition policy, regula-

tory policy and industrial policy. They can influence to different degrees the structure and performance, and hence competitiveness, of the industries concerned.