The European Commission has cleared under the EU Merger Regulation the proposed acquisition of Logix of France by the US-based company Arrow Electronics. The Commission's investigation has shown that the concentration would not significantly impede effective competition in the European Economic Area (EEA) or any substantial part of it.

Arrow Electronics is active in the wholesale distribution of electronic components and computer products, Information Technology products and the supply of related services in North and South America, the EEA and the Asia/Pacific region. Logix SA is a value-added wholesale distributor of hardware and software computer products with activities in France, the Benelux, Poland, Spain, the Nordic region, Israel and Morocco.

The Commission examined the potential effects of the proposed transaction on the market for the wholesale distribution of information technology (IT) products in the EEA and, in particular in Denmark where the parties' combined activities appeared to be significant.

The market investigation showed that competitors in Denmark, including internationally active wholesale distributors such as Actebis, Ingram Micro, Tech Data and Avnet, as well as a number of smaller distributors, would continue to compete actively with the combined entity and so act as a constraint on the behaviour of the combined entity. In addition, the market investigation revealed that wholesale distributors in Denmark face competitive pressure from manufacturers of IT products and software producers who sell their products directly to resellers and retailers, thus bypassing the wholesalers.

The Commission investigated in particular the wholesale distribution of servers and storage devices where the overlap in the parties' activities appeared to be significant. However, given the presence of strong competitors and the competitive pressure from direct sales by manufacturers of IT products and software producers, the Commission concluded that even in these narrow market segments the combination of Arrow Electronics and Logix would not give rise to competition concerns.