(Reuters) – Taiwan’s Fair Trade Commission (FTC) has barred Uber Technologies’ $950 million acquisition of Delivery Hero’s Foodpanda operation on the island due to anti-competitive concerns, the agency said Wednesday.
Uber and Foodpanda did not immediately reply to calls for comment after regular business hours.
According to a statement from Delivery Hero, Uber may appeal the commission’s ruling or terminate the deal.
In a media briefing, the commission stated that the merger’s negative impact would outweigh the overall economic advantages, and that remedial actions would not be sufficient to address competition concerns.
“Foodpanda is the major competitor to UberEats in the food delivery platform industry. “The merger would eliminate this competitive pressure,” Chen Chih-min, deputy chairman of Taiwan’s FTC, stated.
“Post-merger, UberEats would be less constrained by competition, giving it more incentive to raise prices for consumers and even increase commissions for restaurant operators.”
Chen stated that following the merger, both businesses’ combined market share in Taiwan will reach 90%.
In May, Uber and Delivery Hero announced the Taiwan transaction, which included a separate agreement for Uber to buy $300 million in newly issued shares of the German food delivery company.
The US corporation projected the acquisition to add at least $150 million per year to the adjusted core earnings of its delivery business within a year of the transaction’s conclusion, which was scheduled in the first half of 2025.
Online meal delivery services account for a modest portion of Taiwan’s competitive food delivery sector. Foodpanda’s activities on the island were break-even in terms of adjusted core earnings for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2024, the firms stated.