Exactly 20 years have passed since the adoption of Council Regulation (EC) No 139/2004 of 20 January 2004 on the control of concentrations between undertakings (the EC Merger Regulation) (Text with EEA relevance) (hereinafter referred to as the "ECMR") . The evolution of EU concentration rules has been significantly shaped by Council Regulation (EEC) No 4064/89 and its successor, Council Regulation (EC) No 139/2004, reflecting the need for continuous amendments to address new challenges and align competition law with the dynamics of the EU internal market since 1989.. To meet these needs, the Regulation (EEC) No 4064/89 was recast to ensure greater clarity and efficiency in regulating concentrations across the EU, leading to the adoption of Council Regulation (EC) No 139/2004 on January 20, 2004. In the period from 21 September 1990 to 31 August 2024, according to publicly available statistics, DG Competition processed 9,349 notified cases. During the same period, a total of 56 decisions were made under Article 6.1(a) of the ECMR for cases out of the scope of the ECMR, while under Article 6.1(b) of the ECMR for compatible cases, a total of 8,367 decisions were made, which includes 5,875 decisions made under the simplified procedure mentioned in Article 6.1(b) of the ECMR. Additionally, under Article 6.1(b) of the ECMR in conjunction with Article 6.2 of the ECMR (compatible with commitments), a total of 355 decisions were made, and 303 procedures were initiated according to Article 6.1(c) of the ECMR. Regarding the statistics for decisions from Phase II, the following are noted: a total of 65 decisions were made under Article 8.1 of the ECMR (compatible, 8.2 under Reg. 4064/89), 151 decisions were made under Article 8.2 of the ECMR (compatible with commitments), 33 decisions were made under Article 8.3 of the ECMR (prohibition), and 6 decisions were made under Article 8.4 of the ECMR (to restore effective competition)
Koevski et al. (Wed,) studied this question.