Illumina在欧盟就圣杯交易赢得法律诉讼;避免了4.32亿欧元的罚款

A top court in the EU on Tuesday ruled against the European Commission's decision to review Illumina's (NASDAQ:ILMN) 2021 acquisition of cancer test developer Grail (NASDAQ:GRAL), eliminating the €432M ($478M) fine that the U.S. gene sequencing company had to pay.

However, the ruling by the region's highest judicial body, the Court of Justice of the European Union, will only have a limited impact as Illumina (ILMN) completed Grail's (GRAL) spinoff in June amid intense regulatory pressure.

The decision set aside a ruling by the bloc's second-highest judicial body, the General Court of the European Union, which ruled in favor of the European Commission's review of the $7.1B merger in 2022.

The commission initiated the probe at the request of several EU countries, even though the cash-and-stock deal, first announced in 2020, did not meet the EU's traditional, revenue-based criteria for review.

The EU regulators blocked the deal in 2022 and imposed a €432M fine on Illumina (ILMN) for completing the merger while regulatory reviews were underway. The commission also ordered the company to divest Grail (GRAL).

"The Court of Justice sets aside the judgment of the General Court and annuls the decisions by which the Commission accepted requests from national competition authorities seeking the examination of the proposed concentration," CJEU judges wrote.

Illumina (ILMN) welcomed the ruling. "Today's judgment confirms Illumina's longstanding view that the European Commission exceeded its authority by asserting jurisdiction over this merger," the company added.