EU Competition Law Responses to the Consequences of the Financial Crisis of 2007-2008 in a Merger Control

Abstract

Merger control during the financial crisis of 2007/2008 is one of the most challenging topics for EU Competition law. The global crisis tested the EU merger control framework in both procedural and substantial aspects. On the one hand, the national governments had an interest (responsibility) to constantly salvage their vulnerable sectors throughout the crisis and did not want to interrupt these measures. On the other hand, such interventions may have led to a serious concentration in the market structure, and in this case, competition law had two significant challenging tasks: firstly, to maintain its existing competition law jurisdiction, and secondly, to cope with the crisis for the Single Market. While discussing the merger control throughout the financial crisis is obviously crucial, a case analysis-based discussion will be more accurate and useful to understand the lessons learned from the crisis. This paper will begin by sketching the overall consequences of the crisis in question, and will continue to further analyze the merger decisions related to enumerated crises. This piece of work is an attempt to cover all the aspects of EU merger control, including jurisdiction, the community dimension, substantive appraisal, remedies, and procedures.