EU Commission: Competition - 28/07/08

Rebalancing EC Merger Control: The ECJ’s Judgment in Case C-413/06 P (Bertelsmann and Sony) July 28th, 2008
"On July 10, 2008, the European Court of Justice overturned the European Court of First Instance’s Impala judgment, which had previously quashed the European Commission’s clearance decision of the Sony/BMG merger. Even though the ECJ judgment contains no groundbreaking novelties, it brings some important clarifications with regard to a number of procedural and substantive issues of EC merger control law.

The judgment is of particular interest because the ECJ commented for the first time on the CFI's Airtours criteria for the establishment of collective dominance. With regard to procedural issues, the ECJ largely restores the pre-Impala situation and reduces the uncertainty and imbalance caused by the CFI’s judgment as to the importance of the statement of objections (“SO”), the conduct of merger control proceedings before and after the adoption of a SO, and the standard of proof and of adequate reasoning that the Commission has to respect when drafting merger control decisions." [GlobalCompetitionPolicy]

The European Commission’s Reexamination of the SonyBMG Merger: A Precedent-Setting Attempt to Jump the Fence July 22nd, 2008
"On July 13, 2006, the European Court of First Instance annulled the European Commission’s decision authorizing the creation of Sony BMG, a joint venture incorporating the worldwide recorded music businesses of Sony and Bertelsmann. In its 2004 clearance decision, the Commission had concluded that the merger would not create or strengthen a collective dominance position on the part of the majors (i.e., Universal, Sony BMG, Warner, and EMI). In Impala v. Commission, however, the CFI harshly criticized the decision because it found that the evidence relied on by the Commission was not capable of substantiating this conclusion.

Notwithstanding the fact that the European Court of Justice has now set aside Impala because of a number of identified errors of law, the judgment continues to raise fundamental questions about the standard of proof incumbent on the Commission when dealing with merger cases. The 2004 Sony/BMG decision indeed should be seen in light of the CFI’s consecutive annulment of three prohibition decisions in 2002: Airtours v. Commission, Schneider Electric v. Commission, and Tetra Laval v. Commission. The resoluteness by which the CFI criticized the Commission for its analysis of the evidence and questioned the rigor of its decisions in these judgments was unprecedented. The three judgments, which were delivered over a five-month period, gave rise to a flood of criticism of the Commission’s merger analysis and opened a debate about the economic soundness of its decisions." [GlobalCompetitionPolicy]

Bertelsmann and Sony Judgment: Welcome Clarity for EC Merger Review from the EU’s Highest Court July 28th, 2008
"On July 10, 2008, the European Court of Justice gave judgment setting aside a ruling of the European Court of First Instance in an appeal brought by Impala, a third-party complainant, against the clearance of the SonyBMG joint venture by the European Commission in August 2004. The CFI’s judgment was the first (and so far, the only) time the CFI had overturned an unconditional merger clearance decision under the EC Merger Regulation.

As the ECJ Advocate General noted, the appeal presented the EU’s highest court with an opportunity to develop its case law in the field of merger control, in particular with regard to the extent of investigation and reasoning required of the Commission when it approves a merger transaction. Merger cases are only rarely considered by the ECJ and this judgment, which was delivered by a Grand Chamber of 13 judges, has emphasized a number of important procedural safeguards for parties to mergers, which had been called into question by the CFI’s earlier ruling." [GlobalCompetitionPolicy]

The Court of Justice sets aside the Judgment of the Court of First Instance relating to the Sony BMG Joint Venture July 10th, 2008
"The Court of First Instance committed errors of law in concluding that the Commission’s decision approving the joint venture was vitiated by manifest errors of assessment and was inadequately reasoned.

The following is an excerpt of the ECJ's judgment. To read the entire judgment on the ECJ's website, click on the URL link in the column on the left.

On 19 July 2004, the Commission approved the concentration of the global recorded music businesses of Bertelsmann AG and Sony (with the exception of Sony’s activities in Japan) into three newly-created companies to be operated under the name Sony BMG." [GlobalCompetitionPolicy]

IES Working Paper 4/2008
"One of the most important developments in EC competition policy during 2006 was the Court of First Instance’s (CFI) Impala v. Commission judgment annulling the European Commission’s approval of the merger between the music units of Sony and Bertelsmann. It harshly criticized the Commission’s Decision because it found that the evidence relied on was not capable of substantiating the conclusion. This was the first time that a merger decision was annulled for not meeting the requisite legal standard for authorizing the merger. Consequently, the CFI raised fundamental questions about the standard of proof incumbent on the Commission in its merger review procedures. On July 10, 2008, the European Court of Justice overturned Impala, yet it did not resolve the fundamental question underlying the judicial review of the Sony BMG Decision; does the Commission have the necessary resources and expertise to meet the Community Court’s standard of proof? This paper addresses the wider implications of the Sony BMG saga for the Commission’s future handling of complex merger investigations. It argues that the Commission may have set itself an impossible precedent in the second approval of the merger. While the Commission has made a substantial attempt to meet the high standard of proof imposed by the Community Courts, it is doubtful that it will be able to jump the fence again in a similar fashion under normal procedural circumstances." [IES]