Brussels finalizes an investigation into the merger between Orange and MásMóvil

The European Commission will predictably announce this Monday the opening of an in-depth investigation into the merger agreement reached in Spain by the telecommunications operators Orange and MásMóvil.

Oliver Thansan
Oliver Thansan
01 April 2023 Saturday 05:26
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Brussels finalizes an investigation into the merger between Orange and MásMóvil

The European Commission will predictably announce this Monday the opening of an in-depth investigation into the merger agreement reached in Spain by the telecommunications operators Orange and MásMóvil.

Brussels has set this day to make public if it gives the green light to the formation of the 'joint venture' that the two companies have agreed to create or takes the matter to what is known in the community jargon of competition as 'Phase 2' of study.

The heads of the two companies have assumed that this second is what the Community Executive will announce, given the scale of the operation, for a value close to 18,600 million euros, and that if it goes ahead it would create the leading operator in Spain in fixed and mobile broadband customers, according to a Servimedia report.

The forecast is that this in-depth analysis of the scope of the merger will continue until next autumn, and that it will end with the imposition by Brussels of a series of conditions ('remedies'), which presumably will go through the sale of assets.

Both Orange and MásMóvil have defended that their union should receive the green light without 'remedies' or, in any case, of a "mild" nature because competition will continue to be high in Spain. The transaction, they allege, would mean going down from only eight to seven large operators in Spain and MásMóvil has almost no network infrastructure.

The National Commission for Markets and Competition (CNMC), for its part, has expressed its desire to rule on this matter, because, in the recent words of its president, Cani Fernández, "not only do we know the market better and we have already evaluated recently the acquisition of Euskaltel by MásMóvil, but because it affects our territory and therefore we have a lot to say”.