Monti Feels the Revenge of the Merged

It's one thing to be attacked by Jack Welch and quite another to be savaged by the European Court of First Instance. That's what Mario Monti, the E.U.'s competition Commissioner, is discovering. Monti famously withstood pressure from Welch, the former General Electric chairman, when the E.U. last year blocked GE's $43 billion acquisition of Honeywell. But last week Monti took a one-two punch from Bo Vesterdorf, president of the Luxembourg-based Court, in separate rulings that savaged the "errors, omissions and contradictions in the Commission's economic reasoning." The court overturned vetoes blocking two mergers: Schneider Electric's purchase of Legrand and a deal...