An Economic Perspective on the Jurisdictional Reform of the European Merger Control System

"With the enforcement of an all-new European Community Merger Regulation (ECMR) as of 1 May 2004, three areas of EU merger control policy were significantly reformed:

. the modification of the substantive standard for the prohibition of mergers (“significant impediment of effective competition” instead of “creation or strengthening of a dominant market position”) plus the completion of Horizontal Merger Guidelines (specifying an increased emphasis on modern industrial economics and quantitative methods as well as introducing some sort of an efficiency defence)[substantive reform];