Sustainability in the New EUMR Guidelines: Time for an Efficient Look at Efficiencies?
Kluwer Competition Law Blog, 2025
In her 2024 mission letter, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen tasked Teresa Ribera, Executive Vice-President for a Clean, Just and Competitive Transition, with “modernis[ing] the EU’s competition policy to ensure it supports European companies to innovate, compete and lead world-wide and contributes to our wider objectives on competitiveness and sustainability, social fairness and security.” As the Commission advances its review of the Horizontal and Non-Horizontal Merger Guidelines, questions remain as to how sustainability considerations will be integrated into merger assessments under the revised framework.
In a blog post on the Kluwer Competition Law Blog, Analysis Group Vice President Joshua White, Senior Analyst Claire Paoli, and coauthor Jay Modrall (Norton Rose Fulbright) reflect on the implications of this ongoing review. The authors caution that the Commission’s recent public consultation suggests that, rather than expanding the scope for recognising sustainability benefits, the revised Guidelines may further tighten the “efficiency defence.” As a result, they may, paradoxically, disadvantage transactions between firms that advance sustainability objectives despite their potential contributions to advancing the EU’s sustainability goals. “Fortunately,” they write, the EU’s merger review process “provides the Commission considerable flexibility to address EU policy objectives within an updated framework for the consideration of efficiencies.” A more balanced approach, they conclude, would help the Commission deliver on EVP Ribera’s mandate to modernise competition policy in support of the EU’s Clean Industrial Deal.
Authors
Modrall J, Paoli C, White J