Brussels has issued a stark warning to the world’s leading agrichemical companies that they will need to make significant concessions in the coming months if they want to complete a wave of mega-mergers.

 

Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s competition commissioner, on Thursday opened an in-depth investigation into the proposed $130 billion tie-up between Dow and DuPont. The deal between the two U.S. chemical giants would create the world’s largest crop protection and seed company.

 

The unusual breadth of Vestager’s probe into Dow/DuPont is a signal that the Commission is also going to take an equally rigorous approach to ChemChina’s $43 billion bid for Syngenta and Bayer’s $65 billion swoop on Monsanto.

 

Dow and DuPont had offered some initial concessions to try to secure approval for the deal on July 20, but the Commission batted these back to open an intensive Phase 2 probe.

 

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