Brussels, 28/09/2000 (Agence Europe) - The American telecommunications company MCI WorldCom, whose planned merger with its rival Sprint was aborted in June following the formal ban by the European Commission, has announced that it has asked the EU's Court of First Instance to annul this decision on "jurisdictional, substantive and procedural grounds". Michael Salsbury, MCI WorldCom General Counsel, considers, indeed, that "the Commission fundamentally misperceived both how the Internet services are provided and the highly competitive nature of the Internet marketplace". Resting on the conclusions of economists and experts in technical and industrial matters, MCI WorldCom considers notably that: i) market share estimates for a combined WorldCom-Sprint would not have provided the company with a dominant position; ii) the Commission did not take account in its enquiries of the changes that had taken place on the Internet market over the past two years, notably the arrival of new competitors and the development of new technologies that limit market dominance by a single operator; iii) the market in question was defined artificially without account being taken of the supply and demand market.
As a reminder, the European Commission decided on 28 June to prohibit the merger between MCI WorldCom and Sprint, considering that the operation would have led to a dominant position in Internet access by accumulating the networks and the large clientele off both parties. See EUROPE of 29 June, p.9.