Thesis (M.S.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / 2031-01-01

This study aims to compare the EU and US approach towards mergers and acquisitions, both from a theoretical point of view (the historical development and regulation) and the practical one(comparing certain cases), identify their similarities and differences, explain it and evaluate. To achieve the goal, the method of comparison was used (especially control procedures and assessing relevant markets). It was also assisted by case studies (specific decisions of the competition authorities), thus that the merger of GE / Honeywell and acquisitions, Oracle / Sun Microsystems. The work is divided into four chapters. The first chapter approaches the topic in terms of their development and legislation. The next two chapters introduce the merger control in both systems. The last chapter deals with cooperation between the competition authorities of the EU and the US. Chapter also compares the specific cases in which both teams have decided differently.

This diploma thesis aims to compare the approaches of EU and USA to the merger control from the point of view of the competition policy. Its goal is to confirm the hypothesis that both these approaches converge, but there are still significant differences. The comparative method was used to achieve this goal. The necessary information was gained from law regulations, academic papers and books. The results is that in the last years, mainly after the reform of merger control in EU in 2004, the definition of the lessening of the effective competition has been converged and the same happened in the field of horizontal mergers. However there are still significant differences in the area of non-horizontal mergers, mainly because the approach of USA is based on the ideas of Chicago school, but the approach of EU is rather based on the post-Chicago economics. Other differences can be found in the fact, that US merger control system is judicial but in EU it is administrative. Apart of that the US antitrust authorities use more economics and econometrics. These findings are also proved by the arguments of EU and USA in the cases GE/Honeywell and DB/NYX, in which both jurisdictions decided differently.