Brussels à Jour - The Review of the Merger Guidelines – 20 Years on
2 July 2025
Facing geopolitical turmoil and pivotal challenges from digitalisation to decarbonisation, the EC on 8 May 2025 launched its review of the Merger Guidelines. Both the 2004 Horizontal Merger Guidelines and the 2008 Non-Horizontal Merger Guidelines offer practical insights into the EC’s approach to assessing the competitive impact of mergers in the single market. However, are the Merger Guidelines still up to the task? Do they even properly reflect the current state of the EC’s enforcement practice after cases such as Illumina/Grail or Booking/eTraveli, to drop just a few names? Find out what is on the EC’s mind.
