Judgment_paragraph 142 · Tetra Laval BV v Commission of the European Communities (T-5/02)

142It is common ground between the parties that the modified merger is conglomerate in type, that is, a merger of undertakings which, essentially, do not have a preexisting competitive relationship, either as direct competitors or as suppliers and customers. Mergers of this type do not give rise to true horizontal overlaps between the activities of the parties to the merger or to a vertical relationship between the parties in the strict sense of the term. Thus it cannot be presumed as a general rule that such mergers produce anticompetitive effects. However, they may have anticompetitive effects in certain cases.