Listen, Mario

摘要

Many American businessmen have regarded Mario Monti as the corporate equivalent of Saddam Hussein ever since he dared last year to block Jack Welch's audacious bid to merge Honeywell into GE. Though fears that Europe's chief trustbuster would provoke a trade war over merger policy have subsided, not least because merging is currently so unfashionable, those businessmen feel that European competition policy is in urgent need of, ahem, "regime change". Nor is it only Americans who criticise Mr Monti and his Merger Task Force (MTF), the body within the European Commission responsible for reviewing deals and making policy. Whereas some Europeans admire their man for standing up to the Yanks, others―especially those who have direct dealings with him and his team―worry about Mr Monti's methods and decisions, which are increasingly being challenged in court. Even the GE-Honeywell decision, perhaps the bitterest of a series of adversarial cases, is under appeal. In a year or so Mr Monti's greatest triumph might be overturned.