Just Eat and Takeaway.com given go ahead to merge

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has ruled that the merger would not decrease competition in the food delivery space after initially deciding to investigate the merger for possible competition concerns in January.

As part of its investigation, the CMA says it considered information suggesting that Takeaway.com might have been well-placed to re-enter the UK market and compete with Just Eat, had the merger not gone ahead.

It says that as there are only a small number of companies that act as the middle-man between restaurants and customers, re-entry by Takeaway.com could have given UK customers more choice – and possibly better value for money or quality of service – when deciding what to order.

However, after investigating these concerns it has concluded that it was unlikely that Takeaway.com would have re-entered the UK in the future, had the merger not gone ahead.

“After interrogating how this deal is likely to affect the UK market, we are satisfied that there are no competition concerns,” says Colin Raftery, senior director of mergers at the CMA.

Earlier this week, the CMA granted a provisional green light for Amazon’s £440m investment in delivery platform Deliveroo​​, citing that the lockdown, as a result of the Coronavirus, had led to a significant decline in Deliveroo’s revenues.