191 / 469
COMPETITION LAW
177
Conditional Authorization to the Formation of a Joint
Venture
1
*
Att. Zeynep Tuncer
The European Commission (the “Commission”) has cleared, in
accordancewith the Council Regulation (EC) numbered 139/2004 and dated
20 January 2004 on the control of concentrations between undertakings
2
1
(the
“Regulation No. 139/2004”), the formation of a joint venture combining
the existing styrene monomer, polystyrene and acrylonitrile–butadiene-
styrene ( “ABS”) businesses of both INEOS and BASF (the “Parties”).
Nevertheless, the authorization decision of the Commission is
subject to certain conditions as per the Commission notice on remedies
acceptable under Council Regulation (EC) No. 139/2004 and under
Commission Regulation (EC) No. 802/2004 dated 22 October 2008 and
numbered C267/1
3
2
(the “Notice”).
The Press Release related to that decision was published on June
1
st
, 2011 on the official website of the Commission
4
3
. The details of the
decision are stated below.
Parties to Transaction
The parties to transaction subject to conditional authorization are
BASF of Germany and INEOS of Switzerland.
BASF is the world’s largest chemical company. It is mainly operating
its business activities in the supply of chemicals, crude oil and natural gas,
including specialty chemicals, plastics, performance products, functional
solutions and agricultural solutions.
*
Article of June 2011
1
The Regulation No. 139/2004 was published in the Official Journal of the European Union
dated 20.01.2004 and numbered L 24. To consult the Regulation, see the following link:
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:32004R0139:EN:NOT.
2
To consult the Notice, see the following link:
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:C:2008:267:0001:0027:EN:PDF.
3
To consult the Press Release, see the following link:
http://europa.eu/rapid/ pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/11/672&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&gu
iLanguage=en.