Flight of fantasy? The European Commission’s Booking/Etraveli prohibition

The European Commission’s recent decision prohibiting Booking’s acquisition of Etraveli signals an important change in the assessment of conglomerate mergers in the EU.  The decision sets aside the well-established economic framework of the non-horizontal merger guidelines and focuses instead on a theory of harm based on “ecosystem” concerns. 

Pending the outcome of the ongoing General Court appeal, the Booking/Etraveli decision will have important ramifications for non-horizontal merger control in the EU. 

In this latest Brief, we examine the economic logic underpinning the Commission’s ecosystem concerns and question if rejecting these guidelines signals a lower benchmark assessment of non-horizontal competition concerns, as well as risking the re-introduction of a “efficiency offence” concept.