European Commission Issues Conditional Clearance for Alstom’s acquisition of Bombardier

Following a Phase I investigation, the European Commission (‘EC’) approved the acquisition of Bombardier Transportation by Alstom, subject to conditions in markets for very high-speed rolling stocks, mainline rolling stocks, and mainline signaling.

The proposed transaction followed the recent prohibition of the acquisition of Alstom by Siemens in 2019, where Alstom and Siemens did not offer remedies sufficient to clear the EC’s competition concerns. The acquisition of Bombardier Transportation by Alstom would have raised similar concerns absent the right remedies. Compass Lexecon experts assisted in identifying the remedies package. This resulted in this complex transaction being cleared in Phase I without delays.

More generally, Compass Lexecon experts advised Bombardier Transportation throughout the merger control proceedings. They developed economic arguments and analyses to assess the likelihood of horizontal, vertical and conglomerate effects of the proposed transaction. Inter alia, they prepared bidding analyses to assess the closeness of competition between Alstom and Bombardier Transportation. They analyzed the merged entity’s ability and incentive to leverage its installed base in the mainline rolling stock market to foreclose competitors in the signaling on-board unit market.

The Compass Lexecon team included Enrique Andreu, Guillaume Duquesne, Catalina Campillo assisted by Jaime Coronado, with several economists and analysts. Compass Lexecon worked alongside Bernard Amory, Charles de Navacelle, Lucia Stoican and Henry de la Barre of Jones Day.