A Study On The Anti-monopoly Substantive Review Standard Of Mergers And Acquisitions

With the development of the globalization of world economy, mergers andacquisitions around the world often happen. In2012, there were many mergers andacquisitions which were deeply influential over the world, such as Western DigitalCorporation’s acquisition of Hitachi, Google’s acquisition of MOTO. Market playersare likely to maximize profits. They can achieve economies of scale through mergersand acquisitions.Without doubt that mergers and acquisitions can cause profits forthe market players, however everything has its positive and negative aspects. Whilemergers and acquisitions bring economies of scale for companies, the concentrationof capital may cause monopoly, limit the market competition, damage the interests ofconsumers, and endanger the economic democracy. So merger and acquisition is thekey point of anti-monopoly agency of every country over the world. In mergers andacquisitions regulatory system, choosing which substantive review standard is needto be discussed. The current two international accepted standards are EuropeanUnion Significantly Impedes Effective Competition standard and AmericanSubstantial Lessening of Competition standard. The two standards are effect-leadand they tend to be similar essentiality. Based on the case of Western Digital andHitachi, this thesis introduces the reviews and final decisions of European Union, theUnited States and China. By analyzing substantive review standards of European Union and the United States, we learn from their experience, and finally propose forthe improvement of our nation’s substantive review standard on the basis of thesituation of the whole country.Besides introduction and conclusion, this thesis is comprised of three chapters:The first part is mainly to introduce and analyze the acquisition of WesternDigital and Hitachi. Through the introduction of the reviews and final decisions ofEuropean Union, the United States and China, we have a preliminary understandingof their mergers and acquisitions anti-monopoly substantive review standards. All ofthe above analysis are in order to lead the discussion of the substantive standards inthe following text.The second part is basic theories of anti-monopoly review standard of mergersand acquisitions. Firstly, we introduce the positive effects and negative effects ofmergers and acquisitions in order to clarify the necessity of anti-monopoly review ofmergers and acquisitions. Secondly, substantive review standards are introduced, andfinally we compare the two standards combined the case study and conclude thatthey tend to be similar.The last part of the thesis introduces the review，analysis and decision of theministry of commerce of China firstly, thus elicit our laws on mergers andacquisitions anti-monopoly substantive review standard. We analyze the deficienciesof our standard by comparing it with Europe’s and the United States’ standards. Atlast, the thesis offers proposals to optimize the mergers and acquisitionsanti-monopoly substantive review standard of our country.