EU General Court says EC was wrong to block UPS/TNT merger
The General Court of the European Union (EU) has found that the European Commission (EC) had acted wrongly in blocking the proposed merger of UPS and TNT four years ago. The Court said that EC had “infringed UPS’ rights of defence” by basing its final decision on an econometric analysis that was different from the one discussed with UPS during the process.
TNT has, of course, since been bought by FedEx in a deal approved by the EC and other global regulatory bodies last year.
Legal sources have been quoted as saying that “you can’t rewrite history” – so the General Court ruling is unlikely to have any bearing on the FedEx/TNT coupling. However, UPS could potentially claim damages – and the ruling could put pressure on the EC to make sure it is more careful about how it proceeds with future merger investigation.
