Essential Antitrust #47: Chat with EC’s Daniele Calisti: More room for procompetitive efficiencies?

On 8 May 2025, the European Commission launched a public consultation to review the Merger Guidelines. In this episode, our host Jenn Mellott speaks with Daniele Calisti, Head of the Mergers Case Support and Policy Unit at DG Competition, who is leading the consultation process. They are joined by David Foster, Director at Frontier Economics, and fellow antitrust partner Thomas Janssens, to explore what changes may be coming – particularly around efficiencies and innovation. While much of what the Commission sets out in the papers released alongside the consultation appears to formalise existing practice, some elements go further and are more novel (e.g., the effects on labour market, economic resilience, environmental sustainability, and broader societal impact of mergers). If the promises of the Draghi Report on innovation and growth in Europe are to be given some weight, the new guidelines should provide clear and explicit direction – particularly in articulating how they envisage a more open and flexible approach to parties demonstrating procompetitive efficiencies. In the podcast, Daniele Calisti highlights two areas where the Commission is particularly keen to receive feedback—drawing on available economic evidence and real-world experience across industries—on how to assess efficiencies. The first is the idea that efficiencies may be more likely to arise when the merging firms’ activities are complementary. The second relates to the challenge of evaluating asymmetries between alleged harm and claimed efficiencies, including differences in how and when they materialise. For more on the Commission’s evolving thinking you can read our recent blog: Time to catch up: EU reopens the rulebook on mergers and seeks feedback. Please feel free to reach out to your regular Freshfields contacts if you’d like to contribute to the consultation.