Mergers: Commission approves proposed creation of joint venture by Edison and Hellenic Petroleum
- Italy
- 08/27/2008
The European Commission has cleared under the EU Merger Regulation the proposed acquisition of a newly created joint venture in the market for the generation and wholesale supply of electricity in Greece by Edison S.p.A., an Italian energy company, and Hellenic Petroleum S.A. (HelPe), a Greek energy company. After examining the operation, the Commission concluded that the transaction would not significantly impede effective competition in the European Economic Area (EEA) or any substantial part of it.
Edison is active primarily in the generation and supply of electricity and in the production, transportation, distribution and supply of natural gas.
HelPe is mainly active on the market for the production, refining and trading of crude oil, fuel supplies, oil and gas exploration and production, chemicals and petrochemicals. In addition, it has operations in the electricity sector via its subsidiary Thessaloniki Energy SA, which operates a thermoelectric gas fired plant.
The Commission’s examination of the proposed transaction showed that the horizontal overlaps between the activities of Edison, Hellenic Petroleum and the joint venture are very limited and that the joint venture’s market share would be not significant with regard to the overall installed generation capacity in Greece.
The Commission also examined the new entity’s enlarged vertical relationship with regard to the upstream market of gas supply and the downstream market of electricity generation and supply in Greece, and concluded that there would be no risk of a coordinated behaviour between the parties nor of closing off the markets concerned, since the joint venture’s market share will not be significant and several other competitors are present in the market.
