Google-DoubleClick approval expected in Europe

The European Commission is expected to approve Google's planned acquisition of Internet advertising company DoubleClick in the coming weeks, according to people following merger reviews by Europe's top competition authority.
The Commission ruling on the deal is the last remaining obstacle, after shareholders approved it and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission gave its go-ahead in December.

The Commission has until April 2 to reach a decision on the deal, so there doesn't appear to be time to block it now. If officials conducting the investigation of the deal were planning to block or substantially change it, they would have to send Google an official statement of objections. The company would then have the opportunity to propose remedies to meet the concerns of the regulators. If that failed, Google would be invited to argue its case face-to-face with Commission officials; then the Commission's planned ruling would have to be discussed at a meeting of national competition regulators from the 27 member states.

"If they had problems with the deal, they would have sent Google formal notice of the fact by now. There doesn't appear to be time to go through all the motions needed in order to block a deal," said one lawyer who has had hands-on experience with European merger reviews.

Neelie Kroes, the commissioner in charge of competition, said last month that privacy concerns raised by the deal would not be considered by her team of officials investigating the deal, and she stressed that the deal would be judged purely on how it may impact fair competition.

When it notified the European competition authority about the deal last September, Google claimed that its activities didn't overlap at all with DoubleClick's. Google described itself as a provider of online advertising space, and DoubleClick was described as a "supplier of technology for the delivery, management and reporting of display ads to advertisers, ad agencies and web publishers."

Nevertheless, the Commission opened an in-depth probe of the deal last November to see whether without this transaction, DoubleClick would have grown into an effective competitor to Google in the market for online ad intermediation.

Competition spokesman at the Commission, Jonathan Todd, declined to comment on the investigation Thursday.

Google wasn't immediately available to comment.