EU competition authorities have cleared the purchase of British beauty products chain Body Shop International by France's L'Oreal, the European Commission said in a statement this morning.
"The commission concluded that the transaction would not result in higher prices for cosmetics to the detriment of European consumers or otherwise significantly impede effective competition in the European Economic Area or any substantial part of it," it said.
L'Oreal, the world's top cosmetics group, unveiled an agreed deal in March to buy Body Shop for £652 million sterling (€951.6 million), or 300 pence per share.
Separately, L'Oreal said it had acquired shares or received valid acceptances of its offer representing about 95 per cent of Body Shop's issued share capital.
Body Shop, whose 2,000 outlets selling such items as passion fruit body butter and bilberry hair de-tangler, started as a single shop in Brighton in 1976 and is 18 per cent owned by its founder Anita Roddick and her husband.