Bundeskartellamt clears ASML's minority holding in Carl Zeiss SMT

The Bundeskartellamt has cleared the planned minority holding of ASML Holding N.V., the Netherlands, in Carl Zeiss SMT Holding GmbH & Co. KG, Germany. Both companies are internationally active producers of equipment for the manufacture of semiconductors (chips).

Andreas Mundt, President of Bundeskartellamt: "ASML is the world's largest producer of lithography systems for the manufacture of semiconductors. These are very sophisticated types of equipment, which play a key role in the manufacture of microchips. Carl Zeiss SMT is especially active in the manufacture of high performance optics. Our investigations have shown that the two companies are no direct competitors and that they have already been cooperating for some time. Due to the strong pressure to innovate, there are many different forms of cooperation in the sector, particularly in the area of research and development. Furthermore, among the customers of the equipment producers are several large well-known international microchip manufacturers with significant buyer power, which will continue to limit the scope of action of the parties after the merger."

The sector faces considerable pressure to consolidate. In 2013/2014 the Bundeskartellamt had already conducted extensive market surveys/investigations in the sector to examine the proposed merger between Applied Materials and Tokyo Electron (see press release of 13 November 2014). Additional investigations in the merger proceeding concerning KLA-Tencor Corporation and Lam Research Corporation in 2016 (see press release of 2 May 2016) and in the present case had again confirmed that chip manufacture is characterised by constant technical change and that higher requirements also have a direct impact on the equipment manufacturers. The technology developed by ASML and Carl Zeiss SMT is to be made available to the chip industry at the start of the next decade.

Cooperations also exist within the sector with cutting-edge technology companies from originally quite different sectors. In view of the competitive situation in this highly dynamic sector, the merger is not expected to have any negative effects on competition in innovation. Although only a few companies play a leading R&D role in the production of new types of equipment, they still exert competitive pressure on one another despite their different areas of specialisation.