to add to the shame
Due to differences in domestic legislation, the EU and US deal with these
notifications differently. The Commission notes differences in notification procedures
that arise from EU and US domestic legislation and summarizes the EU-US notification
process as follows:
on receipt of a notification [from the merging firms], the Commission
publishes a notice of the fact of the notification [from the merging firms] in
the Official Journal. Thus the proposed merger is made public at the outset
and all mergers meeting the criteria for notification to the US are notified,
even where, on subsequent examination, they do not raise competitive
concerns. The corresponding US legislation9 requires that the fact of a
merger filing, as well as its content, remain confidential. Thus the US
authorities notify the Commission only when, after a preliminary
examination, they decide to open an investigation into the proposed merger
(1996, 3.1).