Baker McKenzie advised Olink Holding AB (publ), Sweden, on its sale to the life science group Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc, USA, in terms of merger control law. The German Federal Cartel Office has approved the acquisition.
The international transaction triggered merger control filings in the USA, the UK, Germany and Iceland. From a legal perspective, the case is of great significance because it was notified in Germany on the basis of the – still relatively new – transaction value-based threshold and required an in-depth review (Phase II). The agreed purchase price is around EUR 2.8 billion.
“Thanks to the close international collaboration within our antitrust practice group, we were able to support the client in this project – in line with our firm’s ‘one-stop shop approach’ – almost from a single source,” commented Jan Kresken, who led the merger control proceedings in Germany at Baker McKenzie.
Olink is a global biotechnology company headquartered in Sweden. It provides analytical systems and services for advanced proteomics discovery and development, enabling leading academic and biopharma researchers to gain a better insight into the evolution of diseases and thereby develop better and more targeted therapies.
Thermo Fisher Scientific is a global leader in the scientific services sector with an annual revenue of over USD 40 billion. Among other things, it specializes in the manufacture and development of high-resolution mass spectrometers (High Resolution Accurate Mass – HRAM), which are also used for protein analyses, among other applications.
Baker McKenzie’s German antitrust team regularly advises on complex antitrust proceedings before the European Commission and the German Federal Cartel Office (e.g., Carlsberg in the so-called beer cartel proceedings before the Federal Court of Justice and the Higher Regional Court of Düsseldorf (led by Dr. Anika Schürmann), Mercedes-Benz in relation to cartel allegations in steel purchasing (led by Dr. Nicolas Kredel) and RUAG International in cartel proceedings before the European Commission (led by Dr. Nicolas Kredel and Dr. Anika Schürmann).
In addition, Dr. Nicolas Kredel’s team successfully advises on complex Phase II merger control proceedings before the European Commission and the German Federal Cartel Office (e.g., Fluidra on the acquisition of the Meranus Group, Sika in numerous merger control proceedings relating to the successful acquisition of the MBCC Group and Deutsche Glasfaser with regard to a joint venture in the fiber-optic sector between Deutsche Telekom and EWE), as well as in proceedings under the new EU Foreign Subsidies Regulation. The team also advises numerous national and multinational companies on global antitrust compliance systems and antitrust damages proceedings.
With more than 300 antitrust specialists in over 40 countries, Baker McKenzie’s international Antitrust & Competition Practice Group is one of the largest antitrust teams in the world. The team has held leading positions in major rankings for global antitrust advice for many years.
