Final report of the Hearing Officer in Case COMP/M.3975 — Cargill/Degussa

(Pursuant to Articles 15 and 16 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)

(2007/C 290/08)

On 21 October 2005, the parties notified the transaction to Commission pursuant to Article 4 of Council Regulation (EC) No 139/2004 (the ‘Merger Regulation’), by which the undertaking Cargill would acquire the food ingredients business of the German company Degussa AG.

On 23 November 2005, the parties submitted a remedies proposal, thus extending the deadline for the end of the first phase investigation to 14 December 2005.

Upon examination of the evidence submitted by the parties to the proposed concentration and after conducting a market investigation, the Commission concluded that the concentration raised serious doubts as to its compatibility with the common market and decided to initiate proceedings under Article 6(1)(c) of the Merger Regulation on 14 December 2005.

Key documents were provided for review by the parties in accordance with the best practices on the conduct of EC Merger control proceedings on 19 December 2005 and 17 January 2006.

Following an in-depth investigation, the Commission services concluded that the potential competition concerns identified in the Article 6(1)(c) decision for the relevant markets were removed. Accordingly, no statement of objections was sent to the parties.

The case does not call for any particular comments as regards the right to be heard.