Final report of the Hearing Officer in Case COMP/M.3056 — Celanese/Degussa/JV (European oxo Chemicals) (pursuant to Article 15 of Commission Decision 2001/462/EC, ECSC of 23 May 2001 on the terms of reference of Hearing Officers in certain competition proceedings (OJ L 162, 19.6.2001, p. 21)) (Text with EEA relevance)
Date: 2003-06-03
Institutions: European Commission
Subjects: application of EU law, audit, chemical industry, economic concentration, report

C 36/6

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

10.2.2004

Final report of the Hearing Officer in Case COMP/M.3056 — Celanese/Degussa/JV (European oxo
Chemicals)

(pursuant to Article 15 of Commission Decision 2001/462/EC, ECSC of 23 May 2001 on the terms
of reference of Hearing Officers in certain competition proceedings (OJ L 162, 19.6.2001, p. 21))

(2004/C 36/06)

(Text with EEA relevance)

The draft decision gives rise to the following observations:

The proposed concentration was notified under the Merger
Regulation to the Commission by Celanese Chemicals Europe
GmbH (‘Celanese’), a subsidiary of Celanese AG, and Oxeno
Olefinchemie GmbH (‘Oxeno’), a subsidiary of Degussa AG
(‘Degussa’ on 18 December 2002.

On 30 January 2003 proceedings were initiated under Article
6(1)(c) of the Regulation. The parties were given access to the
most important submissions on which the Commission based
its serious doubts. This is an important feature of the trans-
parency policy that the Commission is currently putting into
place.

A statement of objections was sent to the parties on 9 April
2003. Access to the file was provided by means of a CD-ROM
received by the parties on 10 April.

The parties provided a joint response to the statement of
objections on 25 April 2003,
in accordance with the
deadline stipulated by the Commission.

The parties waived their right to a formal oral hearing.

After their reply to the statement of objections, a second
CD-ROM containing additional documents placed on the file
was transmitted to the parties. A new deadline of 14 May was
set for any additional observations.

On 5 May a state of play meeting took place between the
Commission services and the parties at which the parties

were informed that objections on certain product markets
had been dropped but that competition concerns remained as
to others.

On 6 May the parties submitted commitments within the
permitted deadline to the Commission in order to resolve
outstanding competition concerns. These commitments were
then market tested.

On 14 May the relevant Commission service received a letter
from the parties, maintaining that the rights to defence had
been infringed in particular by the fact that the information
contained on the second CD-ROM was sent so late. However,
on the same date the Commission service also wrote to the
parties, informing them of the intention to drop the remaining
objections, and to propose a draft clearance decision. At that
point in time any issues relating to the rights of the parties to
be heard effectively became moot.

commitments

In the letter to the parties, they were given the opportunity to
to the
withdraw the
the
Commission. However,
Commission would take note of
them in the clearance
decision. The parties responded to the Commission's letter on
22 May,
to maintain their
commitments.

confirming their willingness

it was stated that,

they had offered

if retained,

Done at Brussels, 3 June 2003.

Karen WILLIAMS