Taiwan blocks Grab's $600 million Foodpanda acquisition over competition concerns
Key Facts
Taiwan's Fair Trade Commission on October 21, 2026, blocked Grab's acquisition of Delivery Hero's Foodpanda business in Taiwan for an agreed $600 million in cash. The regulator found that the potential harm to competition outweighed the deal's economic benefits, according to Reuters' account of its decision. It deemed the commitments offered to address competition concerns insufficient to allow the acquisition to proceed. The commission said "the proposed transaction's harm to competition outweighs its overall economic benefits." Grab expressed disappointment at the decision, which prevents it from entering the Taiwanese market through the acquisition.
Part of the regulatory review focused on ownership links between Grab and Uber and their implications for competition between the food delivery platforms following the proposed acquisition. The commission said during the review that Uber owned 13% of Grab's shares and held 3.7% of its voting rights. It considered that replacing Foodpanda with Grab would leave the market structured as a duopoly, according to its statement on the review. The regulator examined whether the companies' ownership links would affect their incentive to compete in the Taiwanese market. The scrutiny also covered their ability to compete, given the relationship between Uber Eats and Grab after Foodpanda's business passed to the proposed buyer.
Before the blocking decision, Grab said Uber held less than 4% of its voting rights. The company described that stake as non-controlling in its response to concerns about its links with Uber. It added that Uber's representative had left Grab's board in July this year. For delivery partners, Grab had announced proposed commitments to support those working with Foodpanda in Taiwan when the business transferred to it. These commitments included providing all active Foodpanda delivery partners with a set of Grab gear and delivery bags entirely free of charge, according to the company's statement.
When announcing the agreement, Grab had presented the acquisition as a geographic expansion that would add Taiwan to its operations. According to the company's statement, Taiwan would have become its ninth market and its first outside Southeast Asia. Grab also linked the transaction to an expected incremental contribution to adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation. It estimated that contribution at no less than $60 million in 2028, according to its projections when the deal was announced. That estimate concerned the additional earnings expected from the acquired business, as part of the financial outlook the company presented for completing the transaction.
Delivery Hero, meanwhile, had planned to use the sale's net proceeds to repay debt to improve its capital structure, as well as for general corporate purposes, according to its statement on the agreement. The agreement set the consideration on a cash-free and debt-free basis, subject to certain adjustments. The Taiwan business generated gross merchandise value of €1.5 billion in 2025, according to figures Delivery Hero disclosed when presenting the deal. The business also recorded positive adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation that year. That profitability was calculated before the allocation of group costs to the Taiwanese business, as specified in the company's sale statement.
Taiwan's Fair Trade Commission previously blocked the merger of Uber Eats and Foodpanda on December 25, 2024. In its review of the Grab deal, the regulator had extended the review period by 60 working days. It set October 27 as the deadline for the extended review before issuing the current blocking decision. The proposed sale of Foodpanda's Taiwan business thus faces a new regulatory obstacle following the rejection of the earlier deal with Uber Eats. Delivery Hero's next announced milestone is the publication of its trading update and third-quarter statement on October 28, 2026, according to the company's financial calendar.