On Tuesday, 14 December, the European Commission approved the proposed acquisition of the French group Suez by Veolia, a company located in the same country. This approval is conditional on full compliance with a commitments package proposed by Veolia.
Veolia and Suez are two leaders in the water treatment and waste management sectors.
For Margrethe Vestager, the European Commission’s executive vice-president in charge of competition policy, the decision taken aims to ensure that this transaction “will not adversely affect competition in the water and waste markets, two sectors that are key to the European Green Deal and the circular economy”.
The European Commission’s investigation revealed that the transaction, as initially notified, would have raised competition concerns, such as significant horizontal overlaps in various markets in France and in the European Economic Area (EEA) (municipal water management, industrial water management in France, the collection and treatment of non-hazardous and regulated waste, and the treatment of hazardous waste in France).
In order to address the European Commission’s concerns with regard to competition, Veolia proposed a commitments package: the divestment of almost all of Suez’s activities in the non-hazardous and regulated waste management markets and the municipal water market in France, the divestment of almost all of Veolia’s activities in the mobile water services market in the EEA, the divestment of the vast majority of Veolia’s activities in the French segment of the industrial water management market, and the divestment of part of Veolia’s and Suez’s hazardous waste landfill activities as well as all of Suez’s activities in the incineration and physico-chemical treatment of hazardous waste.
These structural commitments completely eliminate the competition concerns that the European Commission had noted with regard to Veolia’s acquisition of Suez.
Link: https://bit.ly/3sbmBP3 (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)