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San Marina Acquisition of Minelli SAS

Analysis Group was retained by Stéphane Collaert, co-owner of footwear brand San Marina in connection with an investigation by the French Competition Authority (FCA) of San Marina’s intended acquisition of French footwear and accessories brand Minelli SAS.

An Analysis Group team led by Managing Principal Antoine Chapsal, Principal Emmanuel Frot, and Managers Cecilia Caliandro and Mario Luca provided economic analysis to assess the competitive effects of the merger. Upon review, the FCA granted San Marina unconditional clearance to proceed with the acquisition.

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Cecilia Caliandro

Cecilia Caliandro

Manager

Ms. Caliandro specializes in the application of economics and statistics to questions arising in the context of mergers and litigation. She has particular expertise working on mergers, which has involved supporting French and Italian companies in numerous transactions before the European Commission and the French Competition Authority. Her work spans various industries, including utilities, fashion, and food. In litigations, she has analyzed commercial practices and estimated damages in several disputes in the online advertising, energy, telecommunication, and ride-sharing industries, among others. Prior to joining Analysis Group, Ms. Caliandro was a policy analyst at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), where she contributed research to various publications on the impact of foreign direct investment and the challenges of statistical measurement of multinational corporations’ activity.

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Antoine Chapsal

Antoine Chapsal

Managing Principal

Dr. Chapsal is an economist who specializes in empirical and theoretical industrial organization. He has provided economic expertise in a large number of high-profile cases involving mergers, cartels, information exchanges, abuses of dominant positions, regulation, intellectual property matters, and damages quantifications. Recent examples include the Lafarge/Holcim and Fnac/Darty mergers, as well as airfreight, cathode ray tube, and elevator cartel cases. Dr. Chapsal has also assisted various firms in designing optimized pricing strategies and dealing with policy issues. His reports have been presented to the competition authorities of France, Germany, Austria, and South Africa; the European Commission; the Higher Regional Court of Düsseldorf; and the Court of Appeals, Conseil d’Etat, Conseil constitutionnel, and Tribunal of Commerce of Paris.

Prior to joining Analysis Group, Dr. Chapsal founded MAPP, a Paris- and Brussels-based economic consultancy, which was acquired by KPMG in 2018. Previously, he worked in a US competition economics consultancy. Dr. Chapsal regularly publishes articles on competition economics, on subjects ranging from the econometric analysis of cartels to geographic market delineation and exclusionary strategies. He is an affiliated professor at the Sciences Po Department of Economics and a member of the CESifo academic research network.

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Emmanuel Frot

Emmanuel Frot

Principal

Dr. Frot is an economist with specialized expertise in applying quantitative analyses to competition, litigation, regulatory, and business intelligence issues. He advises firms in a wide range of industries, providing economic and econometric expertise on matters related to mergers, market concentrations, cartel investigations, and damages.

Over the years, he has performed numerous economic and econometric analyses in Phase I and Phase II mergers before the French Competition Authority and the European Commission, including Veolia Transport/Transdev, Jardiland/InVivo, Castel/Patriarche, Fnac/Nature & Découvertes, d’aucy/Triskalia, Lactalis/Nuova Castelli, Lactalis/Leerdammer, CMA CGM / Bolloré Logistics, Canal+/OCS, and Suez/Veolia. He has led case teams and performed economic analyses in several prominent horizontal and vertical cartel cases, as well as estimated damages in antitrust litigation and intellectual property matters. He has also assisted companies in modeling and implementing changes to pricing behavior.

His reports have been presented to the European Commission, the French Competition Authority, the Court of Appeals, the Conseil d’État (France’s highest administrative court), the Tribunal of Commerce of Paris, and regulators in the telecommunications, energy, transportation, and gambling sectors. Dr. Frot has published a number of articles in peer-reviewed journals and regularly speaks at international competition law and policy conferences.

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Mario Luca

Mario Luca

Manager

Dr. Luca specializes in microeconomics, experimental and behavioral economics, and media economics. He has performed analyses for horizontal and vertical mergers, litigations and cartel cases, and matters involving state aid, block exemption regulations, and abuse of dominant position. Dr. Luca’s work spans industries such as insurance, energy, digital platforms, and pharmaceuticals. His reports have been presented to the European Commission (EC), the French Competition Authority, the Paris Court of Appeal, the Constitutional Council of France, the Tribunal of Commerce of Paris, and the French ministries of treasury, culture, and agriculture. Dr. Luca’s research has been published in various academic journals, including the Journal of Experimental Political Science.

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