It has been several years since the Court of First Instance (CFI) delivered its high-profile judgments over-turning European Commission prohibition decisions in Airtours, Schneider Legrand and Tetra Laval. Those cases generated a heated debate about both the EC’s merger control process and the role of judicial oversight exercised by the CFI. The time that has elapsed since those judgments, and the use of the CFI’s expedited review process in subsequent cases, gives us a wider perspective to analyse the current calls for reform.
The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) published its conclusions on 15 June, describing the current review of Commission merger decisions as “fundamen-tally flawed”. The paper’s premise is that mergers will be abandoned where parties appealing a prohibition decision have to wait almost a year for the CFI to deliver its judgment. The CBI views a timetable of six months for review as more in line with commercial requirements and highlights the experience of the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) in the UK as evidence that the process should be completed within that timescale.
