Stopping Google or Meta from buying startups might seem good, but it can actually kill off new ideas just as fast as letting the merger happen.
March 27, 2026
Original Paper
When iRobot Met Amazon
SSRN · 6349278
The Takeaway
Regulators often block mergers to prevent monopolies, but for many startups, being acquired is the only viable way to scale or exit. When this path is closed, it can lead to bankruptcies and discourage future investment, meaning that 'protecting competition' can accidentally kill off the very competitors it's meant to save.
From the abstract
This article argues that the central lesson of Amazon/iRobot is not whether the Commission "got it wrong," but that a salient ex-post shock can expose limits in the analytical framework used to assess dynamic efficiencies in innovative markets as well as the lack of contestability and reflexivity of the EU merger control process. The Commission's Statement of Objections articulated an unusually granular foreclosure mechanism centered on marketplace governance toolsdelisting risk, ranking and lab