Comissão Européia limita os negócios da DuPont relacionados à fusão da Dow

DuPont”s acquisition of FMC”s Health & Nutrition business

Clearance of this transaction is conditional upon the divestment of DuPont”s global alginates business. Alginates are used as stabilising, thickening or gelling agents in food and pharmaceutical products.

The Commission had concerns that the transaction, as originally notified, would have strengthened FMC”s dominant position on alginates for use as pharmaceutical excipients and would have significantly reduced competition for food applications by eliminating an important competitor (FMC) in the EEA market. The commitments offered by DuPont address these concerns.

DuPont offered to divest its global alginates business, including all tangible and intangible assets for the sourcing, development, manufacturing, packaging or sale of alginates. This includes DuPont”s manufacturing plant located in Landerneau (France), a licence to use DuPont”s GRINSTED® Alginate brand for a certain period of time, as well as DuPont”s pectin-alginates mixtures.

In view of the remedies proposed in each of these transactions, the Commission concluded that, as modified, the proposed transactions would not significantly impede effective competition in the EEA. Both decisions are conditional upon full compliance with the respective commitments.

Companies and products

DuPont is headquartered in the US. It is the ultimate parent company of the DuPont group, which researches, develops, produces, distributes, and sells a variety of chemical products, polymers, agro-chemicals, seeds, food ingredients, and other materials.

FMC is also headquartered in the US. It is a global specialty chemicals company with interests in agricultural, industrial and consumer markets.

Merger control rules and procedures

 FMC”s acquisition of parts of DuPont”s crop protection business was notified to the Commission on 8 June 2017. DuPont”s acquisition of FMC”s Health & Nutrition business was notified to the Commission on 7 June 2017.

The Commission has the duty to assess mergers and acquisitions involvingcompanies with a turnover above certain thresholds and to prevent concentrations that would significantly impede effective competition in the EEA or any substantial part of it.

The vast majority of notified mergers do not pose competition problems and are cleared after a routine review. From the moment a transaction is notified, the Commission generally has a total of 25 working days to decide whether to grant approval (Phase I) or to start an in-depth investigation (Phase II).

Agropages, 28/07/2017