On Tuesday 20 February, the European Commission announced that it had approved the proposed creation of a joint venture by the full mobile network operator Orange and the hybrid mobile network operator MásMóvil, subject to full compliance with a commitments package proposed by these companies to remedy any restrictions on competition.
The European Commission opened an in-depth investigation on 3 April 2023 (see EUROPE 13155/17) into the proposed joint venture and, in a statement of objections issued on 27 June 2023, indicated that, on a preliminary basis, the transaction, as initially notified on 13 February 2023, was likely to restrict competition in the retail markets for the provision of mobile and fixed Internet services in Spain.
The Commission highlighted that the project would create the largest operator in Spain in terms of customer numbers.
The two companies are also direct competitors in the Spanish retail markets for mobile telephony and fixed Internet access services.
The Commission feared price rises for consumers, without however any guarantee that the efficiencies the transaction as initially notified would have generated would have been able to offset its anticompetitive effects.
Subsequently, Orange and MásMóvil undertook to implement two measures to correct the anticompetitive effects of their project.
On the one hand, Orange and MásMóvil have undertaken to divest the spectrum held by MásMóvil in two medium frequency bands and one high frequency band to the challenger competitor Digi. This measure should enable Digi to develop its own mobile network and assert itself as a competitor in the market against the entity resulting from the Orange and MásMóvil transaction.
On the other hand, Orange and MásMóvil have undertaken to enter into an optional national roaming agreement with Digi in order to offer Digi, if it so wishes, the possibility to use the joint venture’s network in order to complement its own network.
Link to the case: https://aeur.eu/f/axb (Original version in French by Émilie Vanderhulst)