WASHINGTON (Legal Newsline) — The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced March 1 that has it issued a statement after it voted to close its case related to Luxottica Group’s proposed merger with Essilor.
The FTC determined that there was no evidence to support the notion that Essilor’s acquisition of Luxottica would violate federal antitrust laws.
“FTC staff extensively investigated every plausible theory and used aggressive assumptions to assess the likelihood of competitive harm,” the FTC noted in its statement. “The investigation exhaustively examined information provided by a wide and deep swath of market participants, as well as the parties’ own documents and data. Assessing the likely competitive effects of a proposed transaction is a fact-specific exercise that takes into account the current market dynamics, which may be different in the future. Here, however, the evidence did not support a conclusion that Essilor’s proposed acquisition of Luxottica may be substantially to lessen competition in violation of Section 7 of the Clayton Act.”
The FTC voted 2-0 to close the case and issue the closing statement.