Selçukhan Unekbas

The European Union’s draft Merger Guidelines give a central role to dynamic competition in merger review. Some scholars have criticized dynamic competition as an analytical tool that seems to always discourage government intervention, given how quickly and unexpectedly—or dynamically—innovation can remake a market. Nicolas Petit, Selcukhan Unekbas, Bowman Heiden, and Pierre Regibeau argue this critique ignores the several large cases in which regulators used dynamic competition to intervene in a merger.

The European Commission draft merger guidelines reorient merger analysis to focus on “capabilities”: how firms compete in current markets and pivot to future ones. However, the guidelines combine “capabilities” with what strategic management scholars call “resources.” This erroneous amalgamation oversimplifies merger assessment and risks inaccurate analysis, writes Selcukhan Unekbas.