IP/10/35
Brussels, 19 th January 2010
Mergers: Commission clears proposed acquisition of Affiliated Computer Services by Xerox
The European Commission has cleared under the EU Merger Regulation the proposed acquisition of IT services company Affiliated Computer Services ("ACS") by Xerox Corporation, both of the US. The Commission concluded that the concentration would not significantly impede effective competition in the European Economic Area (EEA) or any substantial part of it.
Xerox is a global provider of document production equipment and related services. ACS provides a range of business process outsourcing ("BPO") and information technology outsourcing (“ITO”) services and solutions to commercial and government clients worldwide.
The Commission examined the effects of the proposed transaction on the supply of IT services, with a possible sub-division of the market according to the type of services or the customers' activity sector. The Commission concluded that the concentration was unlikely to raise competition concerns given Xerox' very small market share in IT services.
The Commission found that, in view of their different business focus, Xerox and ACS are not each others' most important competitors in any of the potentially relevant markets. Furthermore, the merged company will continue to face a large number of global and regional competitors.
Xerox manufactures and distributes a wide variety of document production devices that are used in the provision of BPO services, such as black-and-white and colour digital printers and black-and-white and colour digital multifunction peripherals. The Commission therefore also investigated the effects of the proposed concentration on access to such equipment by ACS's competitors. The Commission found no competition concerns because the merged company would lack the ability to restrict the access to document production devices, notably because it will continue to face strong competition. The merged company will also lack the incentive to do so, mainly because losses resulting from lower sales of document production equipment would not be compensated by increased revenues from the BPO business.
More information on the case will be available at:
http://ec.europa.eu/competition/mergers/cases/index/m113.html#m_5666
