MERGERS: AMO SR stopped an administrative proceeding in the matter of a merger of undertakings Optifin Invest, s.r.o., ŽOS Trnava, a.s., and Železničné opravovne a strojárne Zvolen, a. s.

On 17 May 2021 the Antimonopoly Office of the Slovak Republic, the Division of Concentrations, (hereafter “the Office“) based on the Article 32 Paragraph 2 Letter b) of the Act on Protection of Competition stopped an administrative proceeding in the matter of a merger grounded, according to a merger notification, in the acquisition of a joint control of undertakings Optifin Invest, s.r.o., Bratislava and ŽOS Trnava, a.s., Trnava (together hereafter “participants to the proceeding“) over the undertaking Železničné opravovne a strojárne Zvolen, a. s., Zvolen (hereafter „target company“). The Office stopped the administrative proceeding in question, because the participants to the proceeding withdrew their proposal to initiate the proceeding.

The Office initiated the administrative proceeding in the matter of the merger in question on 18 December 2019. Since the notification of merger was incomplete, during the administrative proceeding the Office several times called on the participants to the proceeding to supplement it, namely including the definition of state of control in the target company before the merger. On 3 May 2021 the participants to the proceeding announced to the Office that there had come to the cancellation of transaction agreement and they withdrew their proposal to initiate the proceeding in its full extend.
 
The decision came into force on 17 May 2021.