Our economists advised ChemChina on its acquisition of Syngenta, a Swiss pesticides and seeds group. The European Commission (EC) approved the acquisition subject to the divestiture of parts of ChemChina’s European pesticide and plant growth regulator business. In the US, the Federal Trade Commission cleared the transaction with minor divestitures of pesticide products.
New vertical merger test
In vertical mergers, antitrust agencies often focus on the merging firms’ incentives to foreclose inputs to rivals when analyzing competitive effects. Less...