One stop shop
M&A / Merger ModelThe principle that a concentration meeting the EU Merger Regulation thresholds is reviewed once by the European Commission for the whole EEA.
Also written: EU Merger Regulation, EUMR, EU one stop shop
Where a concentration meets the turnover thresholds in the EU Merger Regulation, the European Commission has exclusive competence over it. One notification, one authority, one timetable, one set of remedies, covering the entire European Economic Area rather than a patchwork of national filings that would otherwise have to be co-ordinated and could reach different answers.
This is a genuine administrative advantage of European dealmaking and worth saying out loud, because candidates trained on US material tend to assume Europe means more filings rather than fewer. Referral mechanisms exist in both directions, so a deal below the thresholds can be pushed up to the Commission and a deal above them can be sent down to a member state where the effects are local.
It is narrower than the name suggests, and the gap has widened. National foreign investment screening sits outside it in most member states, larger deals now attract a separate foreign subsidies review, and since the UK left the EU a transaction with genuine nexus in both faces the Commission and the Competition and Markets Authority in parallel, on separate clocks and with separate possible remedies.
The other half of the regime is that it is suspensory. Implementing a concentration before clearance breaches the standstill obligation, which is a distinct breach from anything the substantive competition analysis concludes and can be penalised on its own.
Worked example
Illustrative. A German industrial group buys a Dutch competitor with revenue across a dozen member states and a substantial UK business.
Before Brexit, one Commission clearance handled the lot. Now the Commission reviews the EEA effects and the CMA runs its own review of the UK effects, on its own timetable.
The practical cost is not usually a different outcome. It is a longer path to completion, two sets of advisers, and the possibility of remedies that have to work for both authorities at once.