Syngenta Receives EU Approval to Buy Monsanto's Sunflower Unit

Syngenta won conditional EU regulatory approval on Wednesday for its $160 million acquisition of U.S. peer Monsanto's global hybrid sunflower seeds business.

The European Commission, which acts as the competition regulator in the EU, looked at the case because Syngenta had agreed to sell sunflower hybrids, commercialized or under official trial in Spain and Hungary, as well as material used for creating hybrids or being developed in the two countries.

"Syngenta has offered significant remedies to ensure that the transaction will not hamper the development of new sunflower varieties in the EU, or increase prices or reduce customers' choice of sunflower seeds in Spain and Hungary," Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said in a statement.

The regulator said the rights to be divested by Unilever may extend to major sunflower seed producers, along with Spain and Hungary, such as the EU as a whole or Russia, Ukraine and Turkey.