Brussels, 21/01/2010 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 21 January, the European Commission authorised the proposed acquisition of Varian Inc. by Agilent Technologies Inc. by way of purchase of shares. Both companies concerned are American. The decision, however, is conditional upon the divestment of both companies' entire business in the chromatography instrument sector. In view of the correcting measures that the companies are willing to take, the Commission has concluded that the operation would not significantly hamper effective competition in the European Economic Area (EEA) or in any substantial part of it.
Both Agilent and Varian are active in the design, development, manufacture and sale of bio-analytical measurement products, including analytical and life science instruments as well as associated services, consumables and software.
The activities of the parties overlap in relation to a number of sectors within the analytical instrumentation and consumables areas in the EEA. The Commission identified competition concerns in each of the following markets: - laboratory gas chromatography (Lab GC), micro/portable gas chromatography, triple quadruple gas chromatography-mass spectrometry instruments (triple quad GC-MS), and inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). These instruments are used to detect and quantify molecular and atomic components in a given sample.
In order to remedy competition concerns raised by the Commission, the two American companies have made the commitment to divest Agilent's entire global micro/portable GC instrument business, as well as Varian's entire global lab GC, triple quad GC-MS and ICP-MS instrument businesses. (L.C./transl.jl)