At the end of February, the European Commission gave its unconditional approval for oil giant Saudi Aramco’s (Dhahran; www.saudiaramco.com) acquisition of Saudi producer Sabic (Riyadh; www.sabic.com) after examination under the normal merger review process. The EU antitrust authority concluded that the planned transaction would create no competition concerns given the “moderate combined market shares” of the companies in relation to the petrochemicals and products both produce.

Saudi Aramco announced in March 2019 the signing of an agreement to buy a 70% majority stake in Sabic from the public investment fund of Saudi Arabia – see Plasteurope.com of 29.03.2019. The deal is worth USD 69.1 bn (around EUR 62.6 bn).

India’s competition authority, CCI, approved the acquisition in September 2019.