Germany: Published Federal Cartel Office decision approving SAP proposed acquisition of LeanIX

On 11 October 2023, the Federal Cartel Office (FCO) concluded its investigation and approved the SAP proposed acquisition of LeanIX in the initial phase of merger control. The FCO investigation found that the acquisition would not create significant obstacles to effective competition. The FCO assessed whether the merged product bundle could negatively affect competition and found no sufficient indications to support this concern. SAP is an enterprise application software (EAS) provider, and LeanIX is a German company specialising in business-to-business software solutions for enterprise architecture management (EAM). The FCO assessed the potential impact on competition in the EAM sector and SAP's access to and use of data on LeanIX's customers' IT landscapes.