The January 2012 edition of the CPI Antitrust News Chronicle includes an article by Bojana Ignjatovic and Derek Ridyard which discusses the economic issues raised by non-controlling minority equity stakes and merger control.  The CPI edition dealing with this topic features contributions from Paul Lugard, Enrique Gonzalez-Diaz and others, and can be found at https://www.competitionpolicyinternational.com/jan-12. 

A copy of the Ignjatovic/Ridyard paper can be downloaded here

Patrick joins RBB From Nera’s Competition Practice.  He has more than 10 years’ experience advising clients in South Africa and Europe.  Patrick has developed a strong reputation for merger and behavioural work across a number of jurisdictions.  He has extensive experience as an economic expert and has presented both written and oral evidence on behalf of clients including ABF, Thomson-Reuters, Universal, Inco, Nokia-Siemens, Anheuser Busch-Inbev, as well as government agencies in Europe and South Africa.

Patrick will split his time between our London and Johannesburg offices

In November 2011, following a Phase I investigation, the Finnish competition authority unconditionally cleared the acquisition of the Finnish ice cream producer Ingman by Unilever. The transaction reduced the number of main branded ice cream suppliers in Finland from three to two. The FCA concluded that the transaction would not give rise to concerns of collective dominance, citing factors such as the high degree of product differentiation in the market and the ability of buyers to disrupt any attempt at coordinating.

RBB Economics advised Unilever during the investigation, working alongside lawyers Castrén & Snellman.

On 12 December the UK Competition Appeals Tribunal (“CAT”) unanimously quashed the 2010 Decision of the OFT in its Competition Act investigation into vertical agreements in the tobacco industry, The OFT had alleged that agreements between the leading manufacturers and certain retailers were anti-competitive by object and imposed record fines in excess of £220m on the parties, but the CAT concluded that the OFT’s case could not be sustained. RBB acted as economic experts to the leading UK manufacturer, Imperial Tobacco, throughout the OFT investigation and the CAT appeal, working with Ashurst LLP, Mark Howard QC and Mark Brealey QC.

In October 2011, the European Commission published a revised version of its best practices for the submission of economic evidence and data collection (available here). Jan Peter van der Veer has published a commentary on the new document, including a summary of the changes relative to the first draft published in January 2010.  The commentary can be accessed on the Kluwer Competition Law blog

On 23 November, the European Commission conditionally cleared Western Digital’s US$4.3bn acquisition of Hitachi Global Storage Technology. The Commission’s Phase II investigation found that there are separate worldwide markets for HDDs based on their form factor (3.5-inch or 2.5-inch) and end use (such as desktop computers, mobile computers, consumer electronics devices and enterprise business critical and mission critical applications). The Commission analysed the transaction on the basis that Seagate/Samsung had already merged. In certain segments, the Commission considered that there would remain three competitors post-merger, whilst in others the merger was considered as a “3 to 2”, with the combined Seagate/Samsung acting as the only remaining competitor. The proposed divestment of 3.5’’ assets will create a new third player in 3.5’’ hard disks post-merger. RBB advised Western Digital and Hitachi, working alongside Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP, O’Melveny & Myers LLP and Morrison & Foerster LLP.