Many Article 102 TFEU cases have shown that the analysis of exclusionary behaviour is tricky – even after the conduct has taken place. The analysis of conglomerate effects such as tying and bundling in merger control is even more challenging: it requires analysing the potential harm from an ex ante perspective. This note considers the question of anti-competitive effects of mixed bundling in a merger of two regional newspapers as an example. It shows a simple technique based on advertising expenditure data that identifies a limited set of potentially harmed competitors.

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