Just Eat’s takeout deal tests UK merger regulator’s concern

Bloomberg

Pizza, Thai or Indian? You might think British takeouts have plenty of ways to serve hungry customers poring over menus from their iPhones or laptops.
They can sell direct through their own apps or websites like Domino’s Pizza Group Plc and Pizza Hut, use delivery specialists such as Amazon.com Inc., UberEats and Deliveroo, or log on to a restaurant aggregator like Just Eat Plc or Hungryhouse, which provide an online service for takeouts.
But lawyers say a merger between the latter two hangs in the balance as the Competition and Markets Authority weighs concerns that the deal will cut the options for restaurateurs looking for a slice of the UK’s booming takeout market. Provisional findings are scheduled to be released by early September.
The probe is one of a string of examples where the regulator has intervened in rapidly changing industries that have been transformed by the internet—riling critics who say the CMA doesn’t do enough forward-looking analysis, giving it a blind spot in fast-evolving markets where new entrants can deploy high tech to obliterate incumbents almost overnight.
“It’s not good enough to start with the position you see in the market place, but unfortunately that’s the way they operate,” said Tim Cowen, a lawyer at London-based Preiskel & Co. “There is an alternative, which is that you monitor what’s happening in digital markets very closely, employ people to track them, and look at forward-looking market research rather than looking at everything in the rear view mirror, because it’s out of date already.”