The Swedish Competition Authority has approved EasyPark’s acquisition of Inteleon after a Phase II investigation. The merger was below the thresholds for compulsory filing, but the parties were ordered to file for clearance by the Swedish Competition Authority (SCA) in September 2019.
Easypark is number 1 in the market for mobile parking apps in Sweden and Inteleon is number 2. They are also two of the only three major firms in Sweden. The paying for parking-market is a two sided platform market with parking operators on one side and the users of parking space on the other. The SCA raised concerns that the transaction would allow the parties to raise prices both to the parking operators and to the mobile parking app users looking to pay for parking space.
Ultimately the SCA found that the paying for parking-market is very dynamic, and that entry is easy and cheap The parking operators have substantial buyer power with respect to payment providers, and the mobile app users appear to be price sensitive to the point that parking machines are possibly in the same relevant market which would give joint market shares for the parties below 20 percent.
The press release can be found here:
RBB was instructed by Delphi Law Firm acting for EasyPark.
