5.3.2016   

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 89/10

1.

On 26 February 2016, the Commission received a notification of a proposed concentration pursuant to Article 4 of Council Regulation (EC) No 139/2004 (1) by which Worldline S.A. (‘Worldline’ France), ultimately controlled by Atos S.E. (‘Atos’, France) acquires within the meaning of Article 3(1)(b) of the Merger Regulation control of the whole of Equens S.E., including its subsidiary PaySquare (‘together Equens’, the Netherlands), by way of purchase of shares.

2.

The business activities of the undertakings concerned are:

—   for Worldline: payments and transactional services, including merchant acquiring, acquiring processing, online banking, issuing processing and payment software licensing, provision of point of sale terminals and related services, mainly in the EEA,

—   for Equens: provision of the full value chain of both payment processing and card processing services including merchant acquiring, acquiring processing in the EEA.

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.

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.7873 — Worldline/Equens/PaySquare to the following address: