The EU cleared Harman's purchase of ZF's passenger-car driver assistance business

The European Commission announced on October 12 that it had cleared Harman International Industries’ acquisition of sole control of ZF Capri HoldCo, the entity holding ZF Friedrichshafen’s passenger-car driver assistance business. The Commission’s case register dates the decision itself to October 9 and records it as an Article 6(1)(b) clearance in phase one, on a transaction notified on September 4.

ZF announced the sale on December 23, 2025, putting the enterprise value at €1.5 billion and saying the deal was subject to regulatory approvals. The business transferring covers compute solutions, smart cameras, radar and ADAS software functions. ZF said electronics for chassis and passive safety would stay with the group, and that it would continue driver assistance and autonomous driving work for commercial vehicles.

The notifying parties’ own description of the concentration, published on September 8, adds that certain production assets at two transferring sites will pass to Harman at closing and be operated for ZF under interim supply arrangements until they are physically disentangled.

Harman is controlled by Samsung Electronics, and the Commission said it examined the links between Samsung’s activities in the supply of memory chips and image sensors and ZF Capri’s ADAS. It found that the merged entity would have neither the ability nor the incentive to restrict rival ADAS suppliers’ access to those components, and that combined market shares would remain moderate on all the markets where the parties overlap. The Commission said the transaction was examined under the normal merger review procedure rather than the simplified one.

A separate review of the same parties under the EU’s Foreign Subsidies Regulation, case FS.100312, closed when its deadline and suspension period expired on September 2.