The Role of the maverick firm concept in European Commission merger decisions

Joseph Bromfield, Matthew Olczak

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

The maverick firm concept recognizes the fact that certain firms may be inherently different from their rivals. This paper provides evidence on the use of this concept in European Commission merger decisions. We find that it has been relatively rarely used. However, where it has, maverick behaviour has been considered in a diverse range of industries and the candidate firms have been both insiders and outsiders to the merger. We then examine in detail the few cases where the existence of a maverick was eventually established by the Commission. All of these cases occurred after the 2004 change in the Merger Regulation and predominantly when analyzing the likelihood that unilateral effects would result from the merger. We suggest that this may be reconciled with economic theory by a more general need to take into account post-merger product repositioning.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)179-192
JournalJournal of Competition Law & Economics
Volume14
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 25 Jun 2018

Bibliographical note

This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced PDF of an article accepted for publication in Journal of Competition Law & Economics following peer review. The version of record Joseph Bromfield, Matthew Olczak; THE ROLE OF THE MAVERICK FIRM CONCEPT IN EUROPEAN COMMISSION MERGER DECISIONS, Journal of Competition Law & Economics, is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1093/joclec/nhy004

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