'Capturing Killer Acquisitions in Digital Markets Under the European Union Merger Control Rules'

Download or read book 'Capturing Killer Acquisitions in Digital Markets Under the European Union Merger Control Rules' written by Amil Jagarguliyev and published by . This book was released on 2023 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A couple of years ago, a new phenomenon emerged in the EU Merger Control sphere. This phenomenon is called - “Killer Acquisitions” where incumbent undertakings are suspected to acquire promising start-ups to vanish future potential rivals from the market. Big Tech companies in digital markets are among the usual suspects being engaged in this kind of transaction. This strategy can surely serve to cement incumbent platforms' dominant position in the digital markets. The problem was that it was impossible to capture these acquisitions with the EU Merger Control rules since it was not possible with the threshold requirements. Therefore, it brought about the enhancement of the European Commission's toolbox. This paper will spill ink on what options were on the table to carry out those amendments and what options were opted to do so in the end. It will be addressed whether preferred ways to capture killer acquisitions are good solutions to the problem or not. The paper will examine the preferred approach of capturing killer acquisitions at the EU level in a critical way. Because this work is also trying to depict what kind of difficulties digital platforms conducting business and planning mergers and acquisitions in the EU can encounter with.