In current horizontal merger policy in the US and the EU an explicit efficiency defense is allowed. On both sides of the Atlantic mergers are unconditionally approved if internal efficiencies are sufficient to reverse the mergers’ potential to harm consumers in the relevant market. Current...

The recent financial crisis has posed tremendous challenges for the European Commission's state aid policy and questioned whether the European state aid rules should be applied rigorously to the financial sector in times of severe economic crises. In this paper I conclude that the financial...

In current horizontal merger policy in the US and the EU an explicit efficiency defense is allowed. On both sides of the Atlantic mergers are unconditionally approved if internal efficiencies are sufficient to reverse the mergers’ potential to harm consumers in the relevant market. Current...