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EC clears Lufthansa/Austrian Airlines merger, subject to conditions

On 28 August 2009, the European Commission cleared the acquisition of Austrian Airlines by Lufthansa following a Phase II review, which opened on 1 July 2009. The Commission's initial Phase I investigation found that the proposed transaction would lead to competition concerns with respect to inter alia the routes from Vienna to Frankfurt, Munich, Stuttgart, Cologne, Zurich, Geneva and Brussels. During the Phase II investigation the European Commission reduced the number of routes where it had competition concerns. The European Commission cleared the transaction subject to conditions on five of the overlap routes (Vienna-Frankfurt, Vienna-Munich, Vienna-Stuttgart, Vienna-Cologne and Vienna-Brussels).

CRA assisted Lufthansa during the European Commission's review. The CRA team was led by Matthias Pflanz, and included Rameet Sangha, Katharina Sailer and Andrew Parkinson.

See Commission press release for further details.

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