The European Commission opened on Monday 22 June an in-depth investigation into the proposed acquisition of Refinitiv by the London Stock Exchange Group (‘LSEG’).
For Margrethe Vestager, Executive Vice President responsible for Competition Policy, “It is key for a well-functioning financial market to ensure that market participants continue to have access to financial market infrastructure and financial data products on competitive terms”.
LSEG operates trading platforms and clearing houses. It also offers products related to financial data.
Refinitiv offers financial data products such as desktop services and data feeds.
The Commission has, on a preliminary basis, expressed concerns with regard to the following markets: – electronic trading of European government bonds: this would result in a very large combined market share in the market for electronic trading services for European government securities. In the Commission’s view, it seems difficult for a new trading platform to attract sufficient clients and to offer a real substitution to the incumbent platforms; – trading and clearing of interest-rate derivatives: the preliminary survey shows that barriers to entry are high and customers rarely change trading platforms or clearing houses; – consolidated real-time datafeeds and desktop solutions: the Commission is concerned that competitors in the market for real-time consolidated data streams and workstation services may be excluded from access to LSEG’s input data; – index licensing: the Commission is concerned that competitors in the index licensing market may be excluded from access to the necessary input data available to Refinitiv. The operation was notified to the Commission on 13 May. The latter has 90 working days, i.e., until 27 October 2020, to take a decision. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)