As Siemens and Alstom face EU rejection of their plan to create a European rail champion to fight foreign rivals, the lesson for other companies is to play up the domestic benefits of their merger deals and be prepared to sell assets. The lesson for companies wanting to merge and create European powerhouses is that they need to be more mindful of the domestic concerns of the regulators, said Ioannis Kokkoris, a Law Professor at Queen Mary University of London. That could mean being prepared to sell assets in areas where there is an overlap between the two companies but Kokkoris said that the terms and conditions relating to the future behaviour of the merged entity were also key. “Carefully structured remedies can allow the creation of scale of operations... while at the same time ensure that competition harm is limited or non-existent,” he said. Read the whole piece here.