On 3 September 2024, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) – the EU’s most senior court – ruled that the European Commission (Commission) cannot investigate deals that fall below both EU and national merger control thresholds.
The judgment, handed down in a case concerning Illumina’s acquisition of Grail, is a significant blow for the Commission, which had controversially sought to use a referral procedure under Article 22 of the EU Merger Regulation (EUMR) to gain competence to review so-called “killer acquisitions”, even if they fell outside both its jurisdiction and the jurisdiction of national competition authorities in the EU.
.jpg?rev=e21d5a3f8a7749958d174624cb384047&hash=CA592B9A86096A226DE620CF0D939FFE)
