Visa’s Abandoned Plan to Acquire Plaid: What Could Have Been a Textbook Case of a Killer Acquisition
A new version of the Cahier Scientifique 2020s-60 of the CIRANO, Montréal, co-authored with Thierry Warin.
Investigating an abandonned merger project that could be assessed as an efficiency-enhancing project, as a consolidating merger…. or as a text-book case of a killer acquisition
The applicability of the notion of killer acquisition to digital platforms has long been debated. The case of the proceedings brought by the U.S. Department of Justice against Visa in November 2020 (before their joint dismissal in January 2021) is even more interesting insofar as it makes it possible to illustrate and discuss its different facets ranging from the notion of competition suppression to that of consolidation and extension of the dominant position. Even if the acquisition project was eventually withdrawn, the complaint analysis also makes it possible to question inter-digital ecosystem competition and shed light on the issues related to monitoring acquisitions undertaken by dominant companies.
