EC approves Atlantia’s acquisition of Abertis, creating the world’s largest toll motorway operator

The European Commission has unconditionally approved the acquisition of Spanish infrastructure group Abertis by Italian-based Atlantia after a “Phase I” review of the transaction.

The parties are the major toll motorway operators in their home countries and are also active in other infrastructure management (e.g., airports) and in several related services (e.g., electronic tolling systems, related equipment and services, food services concessions in motorways) in the EEA and worldwide. The combination creates the world’s largest toll motorway operator.

The Commission explored mainly potential “vertical effects”, in the form of both “input foreclosure” and “customer foreclosure”, and found that the regulated nature of bidding for concessions and the presence of other significant competitors would guarantee that competition would not be harmed in any of the affected markets.

A CRA team led by Cristina Caffarra and including Valter Sorana, Patrick Andreoli-Versbach, Alessandro Kadner-Graziano and Natalia Losurdo advised Atlantia during the proceedings in front of the European Commission.

For more details, please see the European Commission’s press release here.