Alstom’s Bombardier rail takeover wins conditional EU approval
| Toronto Star 31 Jul 2020 at 11:17 |
Business
“Thanks to the comprehensive remedies offered to solve the competition concerns in the areas of very high-speed, mainline trains and mainline signalling, the commission has been able to speedily review and approve this transaction,” EU Antitrust Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said in an emailed statement on Friday.
Alstom offered earlier this month to divest its regional Coradia Polyvalent train and Reichshoffen production site in France. It also promised to transfer Bombardier’s contribution to the V300 ZEFIRO very high-speed train and sell off the Bombardier TALENT 3 platform and dedicated production facilities located within the Hennigsdorf site in Germany.
The package includes providing rivals with access to certain interfaces and products for some of Bombardier Transportation’s signalling on-board units and train control management systems.
The final commitments address EU antitrust concerns “and were significantly improved following the feedback received by market participants,” the Brussels-based commission said. The EU approval is based on full compliance with these remedies.
Alstom chief executive officer Henri Poupart-Lafarge told French lawmakers last week that the deal was “on a good path” toward approval. He said it was too early to name a buyer for Alstom’s Reichshoffen plant, which it has offered to sell. CRRC would not be buying it, he said.
Alstom’s separate attempt to merge its rail operations with Siemens AG ran into an EU veto last year. Regulators blamed the companies for not making concessions that fully addressed worries about the combined firm’s power over railway signalling systems and the next generation of very-high-speed trains.
