News
European Commission will not investigate any tie-up between French telcos, sources claim.
France’s competition authority will be responsible for investigating any deal between Orange and Bouygues Telecom, and not the European Commission, Reuters claimed on Wednesday.
The newswire cited unnamed sources as saying that the European Commission will play no part in the approvals process if a takeover deal is struck by the telcos.
One of the sources added that "there’s no doubt" that any deal would come under French jurisdiction.
Orange and Bouygues Telecom revealed they were holding merger talks earlier this month.
Given that Orange is the biggest player in the French market, any deal would doubtless include the sale of assets, possibly including spectrum and customers.
While it seems unlikely that the European Commission wouldn’t interest itself in a deal that reduces the number of mobile network operators in the market to three from four, it is possible that the telcos could iron out all competition issues themselves, through the terms of the merger agreement, and thereby avoid interference from Brussels.
It remains to be seen whether Reuters’ sources are correct though.
