The European Commission has cleared the creation of six mobility-related joint ventures by Daimler and BMW, subject to conditions.

The joint ventures will cover five areas, including multimodal and on-demand mobility through Daimler’s moovel and BMW’s ReachNow service

The two firms announced in spring 2018 that they were planning to combine their mobility offerings in a deal that would bring fleets a single source for everything from ride-hailing to EV charging.

The plans will establish six joint ventures, bringing together the two companies’ mobility services in five business fields: free-floating car sharing services, via DriveNow (BMW) and car2go (Daimler); ride hailing services; parking services; charging services, and other on-demand mobility services. The sixth joint venture will manage the brands and license them out to the other five joint ventures.

During its investigation, the Commission found that the proposed transaction would raise competition concerns for car sharing in six cities, namely Berlin, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Munich and Vienna. In these cities the alternatives to car sharing would be limited. The Commission also found that providers of integrator apps could be shut out after the merger.

In response, Daimler and BMW have offered a two-fold solution for the six cities, covering API access to third party aggregator platforms for mobility solutions, so that they can also re-direct users to Daimler and BMW’s car sharing services; and providing access to Daimler ‘moovel’ integrator app to interested car sharing providers.

In response, the Commission has concluded that the proposed transaction, as modified by the commitments, would no longer raise competition concerns but added that the decision is conditional upon full compliance with the commitments.