The EC accepted the commitments made by Vodafone to mitigate competition concerns.
Background: In October 2018, Vodafone announced plans to take over Liberty Global’s cable network in Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, and Romania. The European Commission then began a formal investigation on the plan in December 2018. The investigation raised concerns about its possible effects on the German market; the EC noted it could eliminate the competitive constraint exerted by the merging companies on each other in the retail fixed broadband market in particular in the areas currently served by Liberty Global's subsidiary (Unitymedia). The merger would also increase the market power of the merged entity in the wholesale supply of signal for the transmission of TV channels.
The commitments: To address those concerns, Vodafone submitted a series of commitments to the EC. These include: providing a ‘remedy taker’ (identified as Telefonica) with access to the merged entity’s cable network; to refrain from restricting the possibility for broadcasters carried on the merged entity's TV platform to also distribute their content via OTT services; not to increase the feed-in fees paid by Free-to-Air broadcasters for the transmission of their linear TV channels via Vodafone's cable network in Germany; and to continue to carry the Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV-signals (HbbTV) of Free-to-Air broadcasters, which allows customers to be directly connected to the broadcasters' interactive services.
Green light from the EC: Today, the EC cleared the acquisition, noting that the commitments address the concerns raised in the investigation. The decision is conditional upon full compliance with the commitments, some of which will be monitored by the German regulator BNetzA.
