Brussels, 20/11/2001 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission authorised the manufacturer of automobile parts ZF Friedrichshafen to acquire Mannesmann Sachs, an engineering company developing systems for the automotive sector. The two companies are German. The Commission noted that the operation will reinforce the position of ZF for certain products, namely gear boxes and metal-rubber parts, but that there will exist sufficient competition with other companies in the sector. The purchasing power of the automotive industry, which balances the weight of distributors by determining the technical characteristics of vehicles, will also ease the effects of the merger. The Commission questioned, on the one hand, whether the fact that ZF is a client of Sachs for coupling converters (equipment that is used in the construction of automatic and manual gear boxes) restrains competition, but it concluded that there would remain a sufficient number of other adequate supply sources for this type of equipment.