Eni first announced that it had reached an agreement to acquire a number of ExxonMobil’s European assets, including 102 Esso-branded petrol stations in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary, in April 2007. Earlier in July 2007, the European Commission (EC) said that it would carry out a more thorough investigation into the planned merger.
The commission’s investigation found that the proposed transaction would not impede effective competition in the European Economic Area or any substantial part of it.
Indeed, the EC found that, due to limited horizontal overlaps between the parties’ activities in all product markets concerned (the retail of motor fuel and the sale of automotive and industrial lubricants), the proposed concentration would not give rise to any competition concerns in Hungary, Slovakia or the Czech Republic.
As regards possible vertical competition concerns, although Eni is active at the upstream wholesale level in the Czech Republic, the EC said that it appears highly unlikely that the merged entity would engage in closing off supply from its competitors at the downstream retail level.
