On Wednesday 18 September, the European Commission noted the withdrawal of the initial referral requests from seven Member States to examine, under Article 22 of the Merger Regulation, the acquisition of certain assets of Inflection AI, Inc. by Microsoft Corporation.
The deadline for the Commission to decide on these applications was 19 September 2024 (see EUROPE 13477/17). Following the judgment of the EU Court of Justice on 3 September (Illumina/GRAIL), ruling that Member States cannot refer a transaction to the Commission under Article 22 of the Merger Regulation where they are not competent to examine the transaction on the basis of their national merger control rules, the seven Member States that had submitted an initial referral request have all decided to withdraw their requests. The Commission will therefore take no decision on this matter (see EUROPE 13474/12).
The Commission will continue to work with Member States and merging parties to assess whether their transactions will be reviewed under national merger control regimes or referred to the Commission. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)