Liberty Global and Telefonica have not offered concessions to European Union antitrust regulators reviewing their plan to combine their British businesses, the European Commission website showed on Friday, November 13.
The US cable operator and the Spanish telecom provider want to merge Virgin Media and O2 in a US$38 billion deal to better compete with market leader BT.
November 12 was the deadline for the two companies to offer concessions should the EU competition enforcer voice concerns. The Commission’s website showed none had been submitted.
That could suggest either the deal is heading for unconditional clearance after the EU’s preliminary review ends on November 19, or the Commission could open a four-month long investigation after that date.
Unlike deals between mobile operators, those between a cable operator and a telecom provider typically trigger few to no competition concerns from competition regulators.
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