Gold Circle/Kenilworth Racing, a case of “horizontal” complements

Complementarity is a dynamic that the European Commission has wrestled with in many
high profile merger investigations such as GE/Honeywell, EdF/British Energy, TomTom/
TeleAtlas, Lufthansa/SN Airholdings, and Universal/EMI. It affects sports rights, standards
essential patents, media and transport, it is central to some of the more complex vertical
foreclosure and abuse theories of anti-competitive harm, and it is a primary motivation for
many pro-competitive joint ventures and “horizontal” agreements. In October 2012, the
Competition Tribunal of South Africa (“Tribunal”) examined complementarities in detail in
the course of a three week oral hearing, following which it overturned an earlier decision
by the Competition Commission (“Commission”) to prohibit two linked mergers in the
South African horseracing industry, approving the transactions subject to a minor
employment-related condition.