Merger notifications
The Directorate General for Competition has put in place a number of measures to ensure business continuity and has continued to ensure the implementation of the EU Merger Regulation. The Commission has adopted a number of merger decisions and processed the notifications filed by companies.
In the current situation, the Directorate General for Competition faces difficulties in some cases in collecting information from the notifying parties and third parties, such as their customers, competitors and suppliers, given the disturbances caused by the coronavirus outbreak.
Consequently, the Directorate General for Competition encourages parties to discuss the timing of notifications of transactions with the relevant case team and to use electronic means to notify their transactions.
The Directorate General for Competition is committed to helping and supporting businesses at this difficult time. It will deal with notifications to the best of its ability.
The Directorate General for Competition stands ready to deal with cases where firms can show very compelling reasons to proceed with a merger notification without delay.
The Directorate General for Competition will provide updated information as the situation evolves.
Acceptance of electronic submissions
Hand deliveries to the Directorate General for Competition premises will remain possible but may become difficult due to a reduced presence of staff. As before, according to the general rules, the delivering law firm or company must call the Merger Registry prior to making a hand delivery.
However, until further notice, DG Competition encourages all submissions in digital format, either:
- electronically by email to the functional mailbox of the merger registry (comp-merger-registry
ec [dot] europa [dot] eu (comp-merger-registry[at]ec[dot]europa[dot]eu)), putting the case team in copy if one has been assigned, or - electronically through eTrustEx.
- Merger notifications and reasoned submissions filed electronically on Mondays to Thursdays before 17h and on Fridays and days preceding Commission holidays before 16h will be processed on the same day and will thus have the date of receipt as the notification date, in line with previous practice regarding paper filings. Submissions arriving after 17h or 16 h respectively will be dealt with the following working day, which will accordingly be considered the notification date.
The delivery of paper originals of the Form CO, Form RS, Form RM and Powers of Attorney with wet-ink signatures remains obligatory, but can be arranged at a later time. No paper originals of annexes are needed. Further information on delivery of merger-related documents can be found here.
See also: Organisation of and participation in Advisory Committee meetings by video-link