On Monday 13 November, the European Commission announced that it had accepted to waive the commitments initially given by the Meta Group (formerly Facebook, USA) to obtain clearance for the acquisition of Kustomer (USA), after Meta subsequently divested from Kustomer.
Kustomer is an innovative provider of customer service and support software for managing customer relationships. On Thursday, 27 January 2022, the European Commission conditionally approved Meta’s proposed acquisition of Kustomer (see EUROPE 12878/12).
On 19 September 2023, the European Commission received a waiver request from Meta. Meta sold the majority of its shares in Kustomer, retaining only a non-controlling minority stake on 15 May.
The Commission stresses that its investigation revealed that this spinout removed Meta’s economic incentives to exclude Kustomer’s competitors from the customer relationship management market.
Link to case study: https://aeur.eu/f/9j2 (Original version in French by Émilie Vanderhulst)