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MERGERS: AMO SR approved the merger of the undertakings Manuvia, a.s., PhDr. Marek Kuchta, MBA Daniel Bercel, MBA, ELNI CAPITAL LTD, EUROTRADE - SR, a.s., EDYMAX Flexibility, s.r.o., EDYMAX Europe, s. r. o., and EDYMAX Personal Management SE

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On 7 August 2019 the Antimonopoly Office of the Slovak Republic, the Division of Concentrations, (hereafter "the Office") approved the merger, which is grounded in the acquisition of the joint control of the undertakings Manuvia, a.s., (hereafter "Manuvia"), PhDr. Marek Kuchta, MBA, Ing. Daniel Bercel, MBA and ELNI CAPITAL LTD over the undertakings EUROTRADE - SR, a.s., EDYMAX Flexibility, s.r.o., EDYMAX Europe, s. r. o., and EDYMAX Personal Management SE (hereafter "acquired undertakings").
 
Within the assessment of the impact of the merger on the conditions of competition, the Office focused on those activities of the undertakings, in which there was an overlap resulting from the merger. In the given case, there was a horizontal overlap in the area of ​employment mediation for remuneration (hereafter "EMR") and the performance of activities as a temporary employment agency (hereafter “performance of TEA activities”) in the SR.
 
The given merger concerns the entrance of the undertaking Manuvia into the acquired undertakings and it will perform the joint control with all or some of the current owners of the acquired undertakings. Thus, during assessing the given merger the Office assessed the position of the undertaking Manuvia, the position of other parties to the proceedings, together with the acquired undertakings and the position of their competitors in the abovementioned areas of activities.
 
In assessing the merger, the Office relied on the market information submitted in the merger notification, which, due to the lack of publicly available information in this area, it verified by the information submitted to the Office by the Central Office of Labour, Social Affairs and Family. In the area of performing TEA activities it relied also on the information submitted to the Office by the competitors of the parties to the merger, which were addressed by the Office within the survey.
 
The Office concluded that the merger does not raise competition concerns as the result of horizontal overlap of the activities of its participants in the EMR area in the SR, especially with regard to the achieved market shares of the parties to the merger in connection with the market structure, while leaving the question of possible narrower division of goods market of EMR open.
 
In relation to the performance of TEA activities, based on the information obtained, the Office found out that the parties to the merger will become a leader in the market of providing services of TEA after the merger. In spite of this fact, the merger does not raise competition concerns, taking into account in particular the method of selecting providers of services of TEA by the side of user employers (diversification of providers of services of TEA), taking into account the market structure - the existence of several relevant competitors in the provision of services of TEA, some of which belong to over-nationally operating groups. At the same time, the Office took into account that there is almost no exclusivity in trade relations in the market and that barriers to entry to the market are low. Based on these facts, the Office concluded that the merger does not raise competition concerns as the result of horizontal overlap of activities of parties to the merger in the area of providing services of ​​TEA.
 
After evaluating all the documentation and information obtained during the administrative proceedings in question, the Office did not identify that the merger in question would significantly distort effective competition in the relevant market, in particular as the result of the creation or strengthening of dominant position. Thus, neither it did identify competition concerns as the result of the merger assessed. So, the Office came to the conclusion that the merger assessed is in compliance with the Article 12 Paragraph 2 of the Act on Protection of Competition.
 
The decision came into force on 8 August 2019.