ICT manufacturer Cisco Systems and Italian VoIP provider Messagenet have filed an appeal against the European Commission’s 2011 approval of Microsoft’s US$8.5bn acquisition of Skype.
Marthin De Beer, SVP at Cisco’s Emerging Business Group, said…
ICT manufacturer Cisco Systems and Italian VoIP provider Messagenet have filed an appeal against the European Commission’s 2011 approval of Microsoft’s US$8.5bn acquisition of Skype.
Marthin De Beer, SVP at Cisco’s Emerging Business Group, said in a blogpost that the companies had appealed against the EC’s decision at the General Court of the European Union.
De Beer said: “Cisco does not oppose the merger, but believes the European Commission should have placed conditions that would have ensured greater standards-based interoperability, to avoid any one company from being able to seek to control the future of video communication.”
Microsoft completed its acquisition of Skype in October 2011.
Skype said in a statement that it was confident the Commission’s decision would stand up on appeal.
“The European Commission conducted a thorough investigation of the acquisition, in which Cisco actively participated, and approved the deal in a 36-page decision without any conditions,” the VoIP provider said.
A spokesman for the European Commission said that it had taken note of this appeal and would defend its decision in court.
In 2010, Cisco acquired Norwegian video conferencing business Tandberg in a US$3.4bn deal, despite regulatory concerns over its effects on competition.
The transaction was cleared by the European Commission in March 2010, subject to conditions, including the divestment of a videoconferencing protocol to an independent industry body, to address interoperability concerns.
