The European Commission’s antitrust regulators are poised to rule on whether Mastercard’s $3.2 billion bid for part of the Scandinavian payments company Nets can go through. Mastercard wants to buy three divisions of Nets, including the ones dealing with instant payments and Billing.
In an early June release, the European regulators said that “without prejudice to the outcome of its full investigation, the Commission considers that the transaction threatens to significantly affect competition,” particularly in the Nordic area.
Denmark was the first country to ask the European Commission to examine the deal, followed by Austria, Finland, Norway, Sweden and the U.K.
According to Reuters, the Commission’s regulators will decide by August 3 whether to green-light the deal. The Commission can approve the deal with or without changes in its preliminary review, or it could open a four-month investigation.
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