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The European Commission has cleared under the EU Merger Regulation the proposed acquisition of joint control over the newly created company Daka Denmark A/S by SARIA Bio-Industries AG & Co. KG of Germany and Danish Crown A/S of Denmark). Daka Denmark will take over the business activity of the Danish cooperative Daka a.m.b.a. The Commission's investigation confirmed that the proposed transaction would not significantly alter the structure of the markets concerned and that the merged entity would continue to face competition from a number of players.
The Commission examined the overlaps between the parties' activities on a number of markets related to the processing of animal by-products, such as animal meals and fats. The Commission also assessed the vertical links arising from Danish Crown's position as the largest slaughterhouse in Denmark and the parties' downstream activities in the sourcing and processing of animal by-products.
The Commission's investigation confirmed that the proposed transaction would not raise any horizontal competition concerns as the parties mostly operate in different Member States. In those markets where the parties' activities do overlap, namely certain markets for the supply of category 3 animal fats and proteins and the supply of category 2 animal meals, they will still face sufficiently strong competition after the merger to exclude competitive concerns.
Regarding the vertical relationship, the Commission found that the proposed transaction would not significantly change the structure of the markets concerned. This is because Danish Crown already supplies most of its output of animal by-products to Daka and SARIA is not active in the slaughtering of animals and has no rendering plants for animal by-products in Denmark. The parties' ability or incentive to shut out competitors from access to the collection of animal by-products or to raw animal by-products would therefore not be affected by the transaction.
The Commission therefore concluded that the transaction would not significantly impede effective competition in the European Economic Area (EEA)1 or any substantial part of it. The transaction was notified to the Commission on 24 May 2012.
Monday June 2, 2012/ European Commission/ European Union.
http://europa.eu/rapid
