On her last business day as Federal Trade Commission chairman, Deborah Platt Majoras, who's leaving to join Procter & Gamble Co., told a convocation of antitrust lawyers in Washington that she had not heard people suggest that it's more of a struggle for businesses to get mergers approved in the EU than it is in the U.S.
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It seemed like a surprising thing for Majoras to not be aware of: First, the EU blocked the proposed General Electric Co.-Honeywell International Inc. deal in 2001, despite the fact that Majoras' first job as deputy assistant attorney general at the Justice Department, which approved the deal, was to urge her European counterparts to give the deal a pass.
Moreover, deals like the vertical Finnish cell-phone maker Nokia Oyj's $8.1 billion acquisition of Chicago-based digital mapmaker Navteq Corp., and handheld positioning device maker TomTom NV's $ 4.3 billion purchase of Tele Atlas NV, both of which sailed through a quick look review (less than 30 days) in the U.S., are now undergoing close scrutiny in the EU. - Cecille Kohrs Lindell
