The European Commission has approved, under the EU Merger Regulation, the acquisition of Costa Coffee of the UK by The Coca Cola Company of the US. Costa Coffee operates coffee shops and hot beverage vending machines mainly in the UK, Ireland and Poland and sells packaged, roast and ground coffee and other ingredients...
The Coca Cola Company owns and licensees various trademarks used to market non-alcoholic beverages, produces soft drink concentrate and syrups that it supplies to its bottlers and is responsible for the consumer marketing of beverages sold under its trademarks. The Commission concluded that the proposed acquisition would raise no competition concerns because the companies do not sell the same products and the links between their activities are limited. The operation was examined under the normal merger review procedure. More information will be available on the Commission's competition website, in the public case register under the case number M.9122.
