"The EC Merger Regulation" is a practical working guide to EC merger regulation issues. It supplies Competition and EC law practitioners with the information and techniques they need to complete merger deals successfully. Throughout, it is alive to the practical issues involved and discusses them in lawyers' terms. This new edition focuses on the law under the new EC Merger Regulation (139/2004) which came into force on 1st May 2004. The new test of what constitutes anti-competitive behaviour ("significant impediment to effective competition") is analysed in detail together with important recent case law. This work: focuses on what lawyers negotiating the EC Merger Regulation process need to know to steer a deal through effectively; guides readers through the complexities of the new EC Merger Regulation 139/2004; explains the implications of significant recent decisions, including Sony/BMG (co-ordinated effects), GE/Instrumentarium (unilateral effects) and Oracle/Peoplesoft (market definition); explains the new Guidelines on Horizontal Mergers; analyses the way in which the Commission reaches its decisions, and why some transactions are blocked and others cleared; and gives solutions for dealing with commonly encountered problems.