European Commission Adopts a Prohibition Decision Against Proposed Combination of Deutsche Börse AG and NYSE Euronext Inc.
On February 1, 2012, the European Commission announced in a press release that it has decided to prohibit the proposed combination of Deutsche Börse AG (“DB”) and NYSE Euronext Inc. (“NYX”) under the European Union Merger Regulation. The European Commission asserted that the proposed transaction would have resulted in a “quasi-monopoly in the area of European financial derivatives traded globally on exchanges” and that the commitments proposed by the parties were insufficient to alleviate the European Commission‘s competition concerns.
The prohibition decision is the 22nd prohibition decision adopted by the European Commission under the European Union Merger Regulation since its entry into force over 20 years ago. The European Commission last adopted a prohibition decision in 2011 blocking the proposed merger between Aegean Airlines and Olympic Air and, before that, in 2007 when it rejected Ryanair’s proposed acquisition of Aer Lingus.