GE faces probe for misleading EU on $1.7 billion deal: report
General Electric Co. (GE) is the latest US company to be investigated by European Union for possibly turning in misleading information during a merger review, according to two people familiar with the GE case.
The European Commission is reviewing whether GE misled EU officials examining a deal to buy LM Wind Power, a maker of wind-turbine blades, for €1.5 billion ($1.7 billion), said the people, who asked not to be named as the case is confidential.
The company may be in trouble for telling regulators it didn’t have any plans to develop a new giant offshore wind turbine when the company did have such a project on hold, said one of the people. The EU began to suspect it had been misled shortly after giving its stamp of approval to the deal in March and GE is now scrambling to explain that there was no intention to misinform regulators, the person said.
EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager signalled a zero-tolerance approach to companies that give inaccurate information when she fined Facebook Inc. €110 million on 18 May for combining WhatsApp data with its other services after having told the merger officials otherwise during the EU’s 2014 review. The social network said it acted in good faith and won a lower fine after cooperating with regulators.
“It’s no excuse that the closed circle of people working on a merger didn’t know what was going on elsewhere at the company,” Vestager said in a general response to questions about the EU’s crackdown on merger cases. “That simply doesn’t hold up,” she said, adding that companies “need to be thorough”.
GE and the European Commission in Brussels both declined to comment on the GE probe.
GE’s push into the wind industry comes after the Boston-based firm took over Alstom Renewable Power Sector as part of its $10 billion acquisition of Alstom SA’s power operations two years ago. GE renamed the unit, which produces 6MW offshore wind turbines, as GE Renewable Energy.
On 20 March, the EU approved GE’s acquisition of Denmark-based LM Wind Power unconditionally after officials found no competition concerns.
But while GE told the commission during the review that it wasn’t planning to expand into next-generation offshore wind turbines with a capacity of 12MW, EU regulators subsequently said they found evidence to the contrary, the person said. The punishment for breaking the EU’s rules is as high as 1% of their annual sales.
The probe into possible misleading information may lead to a statement of objections around the EU’s summer break in August and subsequent fines, the person said.
In addition to any fine, the case could hurt GE’s relationship with EU regulators as they review its other merger plans and investigate its maintenance contracts for aircraft engines. Last month, GE filed for EU approval for its plan to combine its oil and gas business with Baker Hughes Inc.
Source:Bloomberg
