to the merger. We show that a PPO reduces the minimal synergy level necessary to make a merger beneficial for consumers …. It follows that an antitrust authority ignoring existing PPOs when evaluating merger proposals (which reflects the … current EU merger control regime) invites sneaky takeovers: Acquiring firms strategically use PPOs prior to a full merger …

's takeover strategy and the decision problem of the antitrust authority. We derive implications for a merger control approach to … acquirer firm to learn the merger synergies with the target firm in advance. The realization of a synergy is uncertain ex ante …, so that a direct merger exhibits a downside risk not only for the merging candidates but also for consumers. We show that …