El Salvador’s antitrust regulator has asked Claro, the local subsidiary of Mexican telecoms giant America Movil (AMX), to make improvements to its new merger control filing for the acquisition of rival Digicel El Salvador.
The filing, which was…
El Salvador’s antitrust regulator has asked Claro, the local subsidiary of Mexican telecoms giant America Movil (AMX), to make improvements to its new merger control filing for the acquisition of rival Digicel El Salvador.
The filing, which was made on 28 March, does not fully comply with local competition law and associated regulations, the Superintendencia de Competencia (SC) said in a statement.
It has given Claro 30 business days to ensure its renewed application complies with legislation.
If the SC accepts Claro’s amended application for analysis, it will have 90 days to decide whether to approve the deal with our without conditions, or block it altogether.
Claro first filed an application to acquire Digicel in 201l. The regulator approved the deal in September but imposed numerous conditions intended to minimise its impact on competition within the local mobile market.
Claro subsequently lodged an appeal against these conditions and, when it was rejected, informed the SC it had decided not to go ahead with the deal.
Nonetheless Claro submitted a new application for merger clearance in late March.
About a year ago, in March 2011, America Movil and Digicel agreed to an asset swap which would see the former acquire the latter’s operations in El Salvador and Honduras and Digicel acquire Claro’s Jamaican unit.
In December 2011, America Movil announced the completion of two parts of the asset swap: it had acquired Digicel’s Honduras business and Digicel had acquired Claro’s Jamaican unit.
