Three-party Chats on Mergers
The Mergers Unit of the Autorité de la concurrence co-organises seminars with students and law or economics firms to present and discuss hot topics in merger control.
Two new meetings coming in January 2026
Following the success of the first edition of the “Three-party Chats on Mergers”, two new meetings will be held in January 2026.
The meetings aim to foster reflection on merger control by bringing together representatives from the Autorité de la concurrence, legal practitioners, academics and students specialising in competition law.
Each edition is designed as a forum for discussion on topical issues, encouraging dialogue between institutions, professionals and the next generation of legal practitioners.
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19 January 2026 – The suspensive effect of merger control
The second edition will explore the suspensive effect of merger control, a central aspect of merger law and its practical application.
With the participation of:
- the Mergers Unit of the Autorité de la concurrence;
- Maître Hélène Coulibaly Le Gac, partner at BBLM, and Maître Julia Coste, lawyer at BBLM;
- students from the Distribution and Competition Law master’s at Aix-Marseille University, under the direction of Professor D. Bosco.
If you would like to attend, please register here. Please note that limited spaces are available.
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29 January 2026 – The suspensive effect of merger control
The third edition will focus on derogation from the suspensive effect of merger control, taking a legal, operational and forward-looking approach.
With the participation of:
- the Mergers Unit of the Autorité de la concurrence;
- A&O Shearman (event partner);
- students from the “Business Law & Management” double degree at the Faculty of Law, Catholic University of Lille;
- Émilie Berthier, Legal Operations Director, Auchan.
Previous events
The first edition of the “Three-party Chats on Mergers” was held on 27 May at the Linklaters office in Paris, with students from the Business Law master’s (Competition and Distribution) at Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University, under the direction of Professor Catherine Prieto.
The seminar brought together Jérôme Vidal, Head of the Mergers Unit, and Nicolas Zacharie, lawyer at Linklaters, to discuss “The status and role of the monitoring trustee in merger control”.
During the seminar, the Autorité de la concurrence announced that several requests made by respondents to the public consultation launched on 14 March 2025 could be implemented in the coming months, without any legislative changes to the texts in force:
- the possibility of appointing a monitoring trustee upon submission of the commitments;
- an explanation or reasons for a decision to refuse the approval of a monitoring trustee;
- the systematic organisation of a meeting, at the start of the monitoring of the commitments, with the approved monitoring trustee;
- a systematically formalised procedure for the discharge of the monitoring trustee at the end of its mandate;
- the creation of a dedicated page on the Autorité website, presenting the monitoring trustees.
