EU referrals of non-reportable deals are like buses: you wait for ages and then two come along at once. It has been 28 months since the European Commission’s controversial move to accept the referral of Illumina/Grail – a deal with no EU revenues or presence, which the EC subsequently prohibited. Now, we have two more referrals of deals that do not meet EU or any Member State merger control thresholds within days of each other: Qualcomm/Autotalks and EEX/Nasdaq.
What do these cases – coupled with the EC’s consideration of around 50 other possible referrals – tell us about its approach, and how can dealmakers successfully manage the resulting risks to their deal execution and timing?