The European Commission has conditionally approved BASF's acquisition of parts of Bayer's CropScience business -- a transaction required as part of Bayer/Monsanto merger divestment commitments.

“Today's decision follows the commission's conditional clearance in March 2018 of Bayer's planned acquisition of Monsanto,” the European Commission stated. “Bayer committed to divest an extensive remedy package worth well over €6 billion to address the competition concerns on overlaps between Bayer and Monsanto in seeds, pesticides and digital agriculture. The commission concluded that this divestment package would enable a suitable buyer to sustainably replace Bayer's competitive effect in these markets and continue to innovate for the benefit of European farmers and consumers.”

The Bayer Divestment Business includes:

Since BASF does not currently sell seeds or non-selective herbicides and has only recently started to develop a limited offering in digital agriculture, the European Commission did not identify competition concerns with most parts of the transaction.

However, the commission noted that it did have concerns that the transaction would reduce innovation competition in the European Economic Area for the development of certain non-selective herbicides as well as potential competition for the production of nematicidal seed treatments. To address these concerns, BASF committed to divest one of the overlapping lines of research for the development of non-selective herbicides and a BASF pipeline nematicidal seed treatment product, Trunemco.

The commission said it found that the proposed commitments fully address the overlaps between the Bayer Divestment Business and BASF in the innovation areas and in the markets where the commission had identified competition concerns.

It concluded that the proposed transaction, as modified by the commitments, would no longer raise competition concerns and added, “The decision is conditional upon full compliance with the commitments.”

In regard to Bayer's planned acquisition of Monsanto, the commission explained that its March 2018 decision requires Bayer to sell the Bayer Divestment Business to a suitable purchaser.

“The commission continues to assess whether BASF has the ability and incentives to run and develop the Bayer Divestment Business to replicate Bayer as an active competitor in the market and whether the agreements between Bayer and BASF are in line with the commitments. The decision adopted today does not prejudge the outcome of that separate assessment,” the European Commission said.