Brussels, 10/07/2000 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission gave the go ahead for the acquisition of the Dutch company Bann Company NV by the British company Invensys Plc. Specialised in the electronic and engineering fields, Invensys had offered, start of June, EUR 2.85 per share to acquire the Dutch software publisher Baan, operation that enabled would it to increase its annual turnover in this sector to around USD 2 billion. The Commission studied the impact of this transaction on the markets concerned, i.e. certain segments within information technology (IT) application software, namely management and business software, as well as certain services within the IT services such as maintenance, training and consulting. The parties shares in the market for management and business software both globally and within the EEA are very small, as they are well below 15%. This is also the case for the parties positions in markets for different IT services concerned both at EEA and national level.
Taking into account these factors, the Commission believes that this operation does not create nor strengthen a dominant position likely to impair effective competition in the EEA or any substantial part of it.