Commission approves sale of Lufthansa’s IT unit

The European Commission has approved the sale of Lufthansa’s IT infrastructure unit to IBM. “The Commission concluded that the proposed acquisition would not raise competition concerns given the very limited overlaps between the parties’ activities and the presence of several strong alternative players that would remain active after the merger,” the EU executive said in a statement. Under the deal, Lufthansa will outsource all its IT infrastructure services to IBM under a seven-year agreement and the US firm will take over the airline’s IT infrastructure division, currently part of Lufthansa Systems.