19.8.2010   

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 224/5

Prior notification of a concentration

(Case COMP/M.5911 — TenneT/Elia/Gasunie/APX-Endex)

(Text with EEA relevance)

2010/C 224/04

1.

On 11 August 2010, the Commission received a notification of a proposed concentration pursuant to Article 4 of Council Regulation (EC) No 139/2004 (1) by which the undertakings TenneT (‘TenneT’, the Netherlands), Gasunie (‘Gasunie’, the Netherlands) and Elia (‘Elia’, Belgium) acquire within the meaning of Article 3(1)(b) of the Merger Regulation joint control over APX (‘APX’, the Netherlands), currently jointly controlled by TenneT and Gasunie, following the acquisition of all shares by APX in Belpex (‘Belpex’, Belgium) currently controlled by Elia.

2.

The business activities of the undertakings concerned are:

—

APX is an energy exchange offering a trading platform and services related to trading energy, both for spot power (electricity) and gas in the Netherlands, the UK and Belgium,

—

Belpex operates an energy exchange offering a trading platform and services related to trading electricity in Belgium,

—

TenneT, entity controlled by the State of the Netherlands (Ministry of Finance), is primarily active as the transmission system operator of the extra-high and high voltage electricity transmission networks in the Netherlands and one of the four electricity transmission networks in Germany (Transpower),

—

Elia is primarily active as the electricity transmission system operator in Belgium and jointly controls one of the four electricity transmission network in Germany (50Hertz),

—

Gasunie, an entity controlled by the State of the Netherlands (Ministry of Finance), is the system operator of one of the largest gas networks in Europe, comprised of pipelines and connected installations in the Netherlands and Northern Germany.

3.

On preliminary examination, the Commission finds that the notified transaction could fall within the scope the EC Merger Regulation. However, the final decision on this point is reserved.

4.

The Commission invites interested third parties to submit their possible observations on the proposed operation to the Commission.

Observations must reach the Commission not later than 10 days following the date of this publication. Observations can be sent to the Commission by fax (+32 22964301), by e-mail to COMP-MERGER-REGISTRY@ec.europa.eu or by post, under reference number COMP/M.5911 — TenneT/Elia/Gasunie/APX-Endex, to the following address:

European Commission

Directorate-General for Competition

Merger Registry

J-70

1049 Bruxelles/Brussel

BELGIQUE/BELGIË

(1)  OJ L 24, 29.1.2004, p. 1 (the ‘EC Merger Regulation’).