On Thursday 19 January, the European Commission cleared the proposed acquisition of Morpho Detection by Smiths of the UK. Both Smiths and Morpho Detection develop and manufacture threat detection equipment, in particular explosive trace detectors.
The Commission had concerns that the merged entity would have faced insufficient competitive pressure from the remaining players in the European market for the supply of explosive trace detectors to airports and in the worldwide market for the supply of explosive trace detectors to other end-users.
To address the Commission's competition concerns, Smiths offered to divest Morpho Detection's global explosive trace detectors business. This divestment will fully remove the overlap for explosive trace detectors resulting from the merger as initially notified. (Original version in French by Élodie Lamer)