The Bundeskartellamt (BKartA) has unconditionally cleared the Meta (formerly Facebook) acquisition of customer relationship management (CRM) system provider Kustomer after a phase 1 review.

The BKartA decision follows the earlier clearance of the acquisition by the European Commission (more here) and CMA. The German assessment commenced after the European Commission had already started its review of the case following an Article 22 referral by the Austrian authorities. Germany did not join that Article 22 process, but instead opened a parallel investigation into the proposed merger. However, following its Phase 1 process the BKartA concluded that, in light of the remedies already accepted by the European Commission, the merger did not pose a risk to competition in Germany.

An integrated Frontier team based in London, Brussels and Cologne advised Meta on the phase 2 clearance of the merger by the EC, and the unconditional phase 1 clearances by the CMA and BKartA.

Details are available on the BKartA’s website: here

This case has been nominated for the Merger Control Matter of the Year – Europe, at the Global Competition Review Awards 2022. Read more about this here.

Frontier Economics regularly advises clients on competition matters.

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