There is currently no legislative history or legal commentary available to explain why the 'independence' requirement was not built into the merger control provisions in a uniform manner. The Competition Office has applied the law to the letter without regard to the resulting logical inconsistency. In this writer’s view, however, the apparent distinction drawn by the Competition Act between the second form of business concentration (acquisition of control) and the first and third forms (mergers and formation of a joint venture) is not compelling.

Intra-group immunity should be accorded consistently to all forms of business concentrations defined by the Competition Act since such intra-group consolidations (no matter what their form) are not a problem area the Competition Act seeks (or should seek) to prevent.

Adam Mattyus
Bruckhaus Westrick Heller Löber
Budapest