1.3.2018   

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 77/1

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in the merger section of the Competition website of the Commission (http://ec.europa.eu/competition/mergers/cases/). This website provides various facilities to help locate individual merger decisions, including company, case number, date and sectoral indexes,

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in electronic form on the EUR-Lex website (http://eur-lex.europa.eu/homepage.html?locale=en) under document number 32018M8803. EUR-Lex is the online access to European law.

1.3.2018   

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 77/1

—

in the merger section of the Competition website of the Commission (http://ec.europa.eu/competition/mergers/cases/). This website provides various facilities to help locate individual merger decisions, including company, case number, date and sectoral indexes,

—

in electronic form on the EUR-Lex website (http://eur-lex.europa.eu/homepage.html?locale=en) under document number 32018M8665. EUR-Lex is the online access to European law.

1.3.2018   

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 77/2

1.1.

The ECB welcomes the Commission’s aim of further improving the consistency, quality and harmonisation of European business statistics, in particular by providing fit-for-purpose statistics to formulate and monitor Union policies that affect businesses, while keeping the reporting burden on these businesses to a minimum.

1.2.

The envisaged response to outstanding data requirements is also very much welcome. The ECB is pleased to note the proposed improvements, in the overall availability of information for the services sector in the context of ‘short-term statistics’, particularly as the frequency of the provision of such data is to increase from a quarterly to a monthly basis. This improvement reflects the increased relevance of services industries, which now account for more than two thirds of euro area gross domestic product. It also responds well to the ECB’s requirements (3), which have been expressed over recent years, and to the conclusions of the Economic and Financial Affairs Council (4).

1.3.

The ECB proposes that Recommendation ESRB/2016/14 of the European Systemic Risk Board (5), which concerns the closure of real estate data gaps, should be reflected in the construction data required and their breakdowns. In particular, data on construction starts and completions as well as vacancy rates should be considered for inclusion in the proposed regulation.

1.4.

Article 2 of Regulation (EC) No 2533/98 allocates to the ECB, assisted by the national central banks (NCBs), the task of collecting information on, inter alia, BOP and international investment position (IIP) statistics, either from the competent national authorities or directly from economic agents. The ECB’s statistical reporting requirements are set out in Guideline ECB/2011/23 of the European Central Bank (6).

1.5.

BOP and IIP statistics are crucial for the performance of the ESCB’s basic tasks under the Treaty of defining and implementing the monetary policy of the Union, conducting foreign exchange operations, and holding and managing the official foreign reserves of the Member States. They also support the assessment of external vulnerabilities and interconnectedness for financial stability purposes and are used in the indicators of the ‘risk dashboard’ of the European Systemic Risk Board (ESRB) pursuant to the ESRB tasks under Article 3 of Regulation (EU) No 1092/2010 of the European Parliament and of the Council (7) and of the ‘scoreboard’ of the macroeconomic imbalances procedure pursuant to Article 4 of Regulation (EU) No 1176/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council (8). BOP and IIP statistics are part of the ‘Special Data Dissemination Standard Plus’ of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and are required for the ‘Article IV consultations’ undertaken by the euro area and the euro area Member States under Article IV of the Articles of Agreement of the International Monetary Fund.

1.6.

The ECB notes that some of the requirements to be included in the proposed regulation, in particular quarterly international trade in services (ITS) statistics, are currently defined in Table 2 of Annex I to Regulation (EC) No 184/2005 of the European Parliament and of the Council (9) and that identical requirements are defined in Table 2 of Annex II to Guideline ECB/2011/23. It is in the interest of the overall quality of European BOP and IIP statistics produced by the European Statistical System (ESS) and the ESCB that such consistency is preserved. It is also of the utmost importance that BOP and IIP statistics remain internally coherent and comprehensive.

1.7.

Moreover, as these requirements are partly satisfied at national level by data collection initiatives developed by NCBs, the ECB very much welcomes Article 23 of the proposed regulation and the role assigned to the Committee on Monetary, Financial and Balance of Payments Statistics established by Council Decision 2006/856/EC (10). More generally, close cooperation between the ESCB and the ESS must be ensured when defining, amending or updating such requirements, as well as all other business statistics requirements (e.g. to address data needs in the field of ‘globalisation’) that would directly or indirectly affect the compilation of BOP and IIP statistics.

1.8.

Article 7 of the proposed regulation empowers the Commission to adopt implementing acts for the purpose of further specifying certain elements of the data to be transmitted. These include fundamental methodological aspects, such as the definition of the relevant statistical unit and other applicable statistical classifications. In this context, from the perspective of both users and compilers of statistics, it will be important to ensure coherence between the ITS requirements defined in the proposed regulation and those defined in Regulation (EC) No 184/2005. Hence, the ECB wishes to highlight the importance of methodological closeness and coherence between the two data sets.

1.9.

Finally, the ECB wishes to stress the importance of the ECB being consulted on all delegated and implementing legal acts that fall in its field of competence, and in a timely manner, pursuant to Article 127(4) first indent and Article 282(5) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (11).

1.3.2018   

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 77/5

1.3.2018   

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 77/6

1.

On 23 February 2018, the Commission received notification of a proposed concentration pursuant to Article 4 of Council Regulation (EC) No 139/2004 (1).

This notification concerns the following undertakings:

Richemont (through Bidco) acquires within the meaning of Article 3(1)(b) of the Merger Regulation control of the whole of YNAP.

The concentration is accomplished by way of public bid announced on 22 January 2018.

2.

The business activities of the undertakings concerned are:

3.

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

Pursuant to the Commission Notice on a simplified procedure for treatment of certain concentrations under the Council Regulation (EC) No 139/2004 (2) it should be noted that this case is a candidate for treatment under the procedure set out in the Notice.

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. The following reference should always be specified:

M.8806 — Richemont/Yoox Net-a-Porter Group

Observations can be sent to the Commission by email, by fax, or by post. Please use the contact details below:

1.3.2018   

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 77/8

1.

On 22 February 2018, the Commission received notification of a proposed concentration pursuant to Article 4 of Council Regulation (EC) No 139/2004 (1) by which the undertaking Advent International Corporation (‘Advent’, USA) acquires within the meaning of Article 3(1)(b) of the Merger Regulation sole control over Circet Groupe (‘Circet’, France), by way of purchase of shares.

2.

The business activities of the undertakings concerned are:

—   for Advent: US-based private equity investor sponsoring funds that invest globally,

—   for Circet: mid-sized French company operating in telecommunications infrastructures services as well as in the distribution of mobile telephony products and service, through its affiliate Circet Réseaux.

3.

On preliminary examination, the Commission finds that the notified transaction could fall within the scope of the Merger Regulation. However, the final decision on this point is reserved. Pursuant to the Commission Notice on a simplified procedure for treatment of certain concentrations under the Council Regulation (EC) No 139/2004 (2) it should be noted that this case is a candidate for treatment under the procedure set out in this Notice.

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 email to COMP-MERGER-REGISTRY@ec.europa.eu or by post, under reference number:

M.8821 — Advent International/Circet Groupe to the following address: