Brussels, 11/01/2013 (Agence Europe) - Independent record labels represented by Impala are calling on the European Commission to carry out an investigation to check whether the sale of assets required by the Commission for autorisation of the Sony and Universal Music buy-up of their competitor EMI (see EUROPE 10694 and 10681) encourages competition as was the aim and doen't support the existing Universal/Sony duopoly, it says in a press release issued on 11 January. Impala says Universal and Sony were autorised to buy up EMI on the condition that they sell assets to properly offset the distorsions of competition caused by acquisition of their competitor. The Commission imposed very strict rules: - the purchaser of the said assets must not have any connection with the seller; - the seller must not benefit from the sales or re-acquire market influence on the assets sold; - asset sales must not create other competition issues (Impala says this means that Sony cannot bid for the assets being sold). It appears that Sony and BMG, which are known to work closely together, have issued a joint bid for the purchase of Parlophone and other assets sold by Universal/EMI. BMG has been selected as the purchaser for the Virgin and Famous catalogues, and the agreement was announced on the same day as BMG said it was buying Universal's Mute Records. Impala says the Commission should be alarmed at this and argues that the way the assets are being sold is beneficial to the market leaders' positions to the detriment of independent record labels. (FG/transl.fl)
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