Currently, Luxembourg is the only EU Member State without a national merger control regime.
In essence, merger control rules aim to review ex ante the impact of projected business combinations on the competitive structure of a given market with a view to intervening preventively with respect to transactions which would likely reduce competition among rival firms and/or foreclose competitors.
On 13 July, the Ministry of Economy published an interim report on the preparatory work on the introduction of such a regime to which economic players and public authorities have participated (see link here). This document summarises the input of the participants, in particular the outcome of a public consultation launched earlier this year (read more here).
The Ministry notes that a majority of the responses to the public consultation call for the introduction of a national merger control regime.
