Germany’s antitrust authority has expressed concerns to the European Union’s competition watchdog about the planned merger of the rail operations of Siemens and France’s Alstom, a newspaper reported on Sunday, January 13.
The EU watchdog is set to decide by February 18 whether to approve the merger, with French newspaper Les Echos reporting that the European Commission was likely to veto the merger, which would create a Franco-German rail champion.
The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported the German competition body had written a confidential letter to its EU counterpart stressing concerns about the planned deal and saying it completely shares the Commission’s reservations.
The German body stated it did not believe that the recent pledges of both companies removed those competitive concerns, the paper cited the letter as saying.
Full Content: Financial Times
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