On Wednesday 30 May, the European Commission once again gave its conditional agreement, with regard to EU rules on mergers, to the acquisition of the Dutch cable operator Ziggo by the British company Liberty Global.
The institution had previously conditionally approved the transaction on 10 October 2014, but following an appeal by KPN BV, a company active in cabled networks in the Netherlands, the General Court of the EU cancelled the Commission's first decision on 26 October of last year, on the grounds that the Commission had not exhaustively listed all the reasons it felt the acquisition would not hinder competition on single market.
As the Commission confirmed that it had concerns that the transaction as initially notified would increase Liberty Global's bargaining power when dealing with broadcasting companies, which would be bad for innovation, it made the transaction conditional on the implementation of several commitments.
Among the corrective measures, the British company undertook to remove or leave out clauses limiting the capacity of broadcasters to offer their channels and content on the Internet in sharing agreements, to maintain sufficient interconnection capacity in the Netherlands and to refrain from buying back the channel Film1, which was sold to Sony following the first decision.
Subject to these commitments, the Commission considers that the transaction is compatible with EU competition rules. (Original version in French by Lucas Tripoteau)