Brussels, 05/07/2010 (Agence Europe) - On Friday 2 July, the European Commission cleared the planned acquisition of Bell Micro by Avnet, a deal notified on 28 May 2010. Avnet and Bell Micro are both US-based distributors of information technology products. The Commission examined the effects of the proposed transaction on the market for the wholesale distribution of IT products in the European Economic Area (EEA), and in particular for the distribution of data storage products and servers in the Netherlands and in the UK, where the combined entity's position would be strong. The Commission's investigation showed that the merged entity would continue to face competitive constraint from numerous competitors and that manufacturers of IT products have partnerships with several distributors and are able to appoint new distributors. IT manufacturers also sell directly to resellers and retailers, thereby bypassing wholesalers. It therefore decided that the merger would not cause any competition problems on the markets in question in the EEA. (F.G./transl.fl)