The European Commission's competition directorate-general has approved the creation of a joint venture by two German companies which is to operate an online trading platform for recovered paper. The companies involved are the recycling group GreenCycle Holding GmbH & Co. KG and the recovered paper specialist NWD (Nord-Westdeutsche Papierrohstoff GmbH & Co. KG).
GreenCycle is active in the collection, trade and supply of recyclable waste and belongs to the Schwarz group, which is predominantly active in the food retail sector through its Lidl and Kaufland supermarket chains and last year took over the German waste management company Tönsmeier. NWD is active in recovered paper collection and sorting and is owned by the paper and packaging producer Weig. The EU Commission reported on Tuesday that the proposed transaction would raise no competition concerns "given the limited activities of the joint venture in the European Economic Area".
