On 21 September 1990, the Merger Regulation came into force, introducing into EU competition law a legal framework for the systematic review of mergers, acquisitions, and other forms of concentration. This article contains a short introduction to the Merger Regulation that: (1) explains the principal provisions of the Merger Regulation and describes the fundamental principles on which it is based; (2) identifies the main trends and developments in its application; (3) summarises the Merger Regulation’s implications for the practice of competition law in Europe; (4) identifies the main differences between EU merger control and the US process; (5) examines certain of the key developments in the Merger Regulation’s evolution and provides an historical overview of some of the leading decisions of the Commission and judgments of the Community courts; and (6) describes the principal elements and practical implications of the Commission’s December 2002 package of proposed reforms to the Merger Regulation. The article is an extract from a forthcoming book on the Merger Regulation, European Merger Control Law: A Guide to the Merger Regulation, which is scheduled for publication by LexisNexis Matthew Bender in June 2003.
World Competition