Brussels, 23/06/2003 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission has authorised the acquisition of the Luxembourg-based chemical producer Vantico Group S.A. by the US fund MatlinPatterson, which has joint control of Huntsman Holdings LLC, also a chemicals company based in the United States. The deal, notified on 15 May, foresees that MatlinPatterson will contribute the Vantico equity to Huntsman, which will then control the company. The Commission notes that although both Huntsman and Vantico operate in the chemicals sector, their product ranges are largely complementary and any possible horizontal overlap, if any, is negligible. It did, however, investigate whether Vantico's strong position in a particular sector might favour the other by granting preferential access to Huntsman's products, but concluded that the parties' respective market shares in the downstream and upstream markets were not such as to create a dominant position in a market with sufficient spare capacity from third parties to exclude risks of possible foreclosure for Vantico's competitors.