Publication details
Shareholders´ Agreements between the Law of Contract and Competition
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| Year of publication | 2018 |
| Type | Chapter of a book |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
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| Description | Shareholders’ agreements are significant especially when examining the competitive behaviour in relation to the concentrations of competitors. Their relationship toward agreements distorting competition (cartels) is more marginal. A shareholders’ agreement may meet the criteria for joint control not only by acquiring a controlling packet of shares, but also as a result of the acquisition of minority shares under certain circumstances – especially if it is of sufficiently long duration to be able to influence (interfere with) competition on the relevant market substantially. A shareholders’ agreement may establish a “de facto fusion/merger”, that need not necessarily be of a nature of structural (formal) market change but it may rather have similar consequences although the change itself amounts only to a mere behavioural change. From the anti-trust-law point of view, even the potentiality of influence is legally relevant. |