When Mr Verheugen suggested that merger rules might be applied less fiercely, liberals cried foul.

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EU's current merger rules to provide a test for when bundling, if it happened, might harm competition.

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In Brussels competition regulators face intense lobbying from businessmen, industrialists and many governments demanding that aid and merger rules be eased, to help European champions withstand global competition.

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The culture secretary said he recognised the need for changes to merger rules but added that safeguards were already in place to check whether an individual was suitable to hold a broadcasting licence.

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Reality is regardless of how Judge Sean ultimately rules, after the merger the new board of directors of the combined entity is free to grant whatever largesse they care to bestow on Mr. Horton.

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Given that Mozilla is a global non-profit and that the agreement is a commercial agreement and not a formal merger or acquisition, Hart Scott Rodino antitrust rules may or may not apply here.

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But everybody knows that pooling-of-interest accounting, which tends to inflate reported earnings after a merger, helped encourage the conglomerate craze of the late Sixties, and that changing those rules made conglomeration much less attractive.

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