UK Regulator Gives Provisional Green Light to Amex GBT-CWT Merger
Photo Credit: Business travelers at an airport. Getty Images
Skift Take
All of the sudden, the deal is showing some life. If the UK ultimately approves it next month, the acquisition would still have to get past a Department of Justice lawsuit seeking to kill it.
The UK's competition regulator, which last year preliminarily found that American Express Global Business Travel's pending $570 million acquisition of rival CWT would likely stifle competition in corporate travel, has reversed course.
The Competition and Markets Authority stated Tuesday that it subsequently considered additional evidence about CWT's financial position and therefore "we have now provisionally concluded that the merger will not result in a substantial lessening of competition in corporate travel management services."
The new finding is not the end of the merger review process in the UK. The CMA is slat
