The European Commission runs one of the world’s most well-established merger control regimes, reviewing approximately 400 transactions each year. Its timing, interventions and processes can have a significant impact on global M&A projects, and will become even more relevant through referrals in cases that initially appear beyond the EC’s reach.

How long does EU merger review, including prenotification, take? What is the EC’s rate of intervention? What are its preferences in green-lighting an acceptable remedy?

Today we are launching Rhino. It aims to answer these questions based on hard data.

What is Rhino?

Rhino is our digital platform for EU merger control analysis with statistics, updated monthly, and commentary.

EC merger control themes explained in graphs

In easy-to-understand graphs, Rhino shows that deals have been impacted by higher intervention rates, longer review periods and tougher remedies in the past decade. In a glance, you can see how EC merger reviews have impacted transactions since 2011, giving you an immediate sense of what this means for future transactions.

Why ‘Rhino’?

Why the name ‘Rhino’ you ask? Well, like the rhino in the animal kingdom, the EU merger control regime is an obvious and straightforward force in the global merger control landscape. Although it may, at times, appear slow-paced or brutish, it can be surprisingly swift to react when threatened and its instinct is to charge directly at whatever has spooked it.

Please direct me to Rhino

Click here to visit the Rhino page. On the page, you can subscribe to receive a notification each time we update the stats.