Killer acquisitions and European merger control in the digital era

Sammanfattning: The Big Tech companies, more precisely the five American giants: Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft, have been performing a massive number of startup acquisitions and strengthening their dominant position in the market. In an economical study about mergers in the pharmaceutical sector the term killer acquisition was firstly adopted to define a transaction in which an incumbent, after acquiring a innovative target, terminates the development of the target’s innovations in order to prevent a future competitor. This term has also been employed for the technological sector as a harm theory to determine anticompetitive behaviour. In Europe, it has given raise to concerns because such transactions are not scrutinised by the competition authorities. And that is the reason why there is a lively debate about the necessity or not of the change of the Mergers Regulation in order to prevent the occurrence of killer acquisitions. This master thesis shows how US antitrust law has been contributing for the growth of such Big Tech companies, allowing them to enhance their dominant position at the expense of society. Its impact on European market is pointed out through the exposition of crucial issues concerning the necessity and the problematic of change of the EU mergers regulation. Furthermore, explanatory comments are given on the Commission’s approach in tackling the killer acquisitions. Finally, measures adopted by the European Union outside of the competition policy are presented as being helpful to combat such anticompetitive transactions, but further research is needed in order to bring conclusive results.