European Court of Justice provides guidance on merger ‘gun-jumping’
The European Court of Justice has published guidance on “gun-jumping”, a failure by merging parties to comply with the “standstill obligation”, which requires companies to seek clearance by a competition authority before implementing a merger.
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Guidance on “gun-jumping”—a failure by merging parties to comply with the “standstill obligation”, which prohibits them from taking any steps to implement their merger before clearance from the relevant competition authority is received—has been provided by the European Court of Justice (ECJ).
In Case C-633/16, several KPMG and Ernst & Young (EY) companies entered into a merger agreement in relation to their Danish auditing activities. When the merger agreement was concluded in 2013—but before the clearance from the Danish competition authority was received—the KPMG companies gave notice to terminate the cooperation agreement to which they were party with KPMG International.
The Danish competition authority declare