Hutchison Whampoa made a presentation to the European Commission and other officials and representatives today in an oral hearing where it laid out why its acquisition of Telefonica-owned O2 Ireland was pro-competitive.
The hearing follows the EC’s…
Hutchison Whampoa made a presentation to the European Commission and other officials and representatives today in an oral hearing where it laid out why its acquisition of Telefonica-owned O2 Ireland was pro-competitive.
The hearing follows the EC’s statement of objections which it laid out at the start of this month.
The meeting is set to conclude at 7:30pm tonight CET and is part of the €780m transaction’s Phase 2 review.
A merger would reduce the number of mobile network operators in Ireland from four to three and the EC harbours concerns that this could harm competition and lead to higher prices.
Hutchison is prepared to look at remedies to get a deal through and has been in discussions with rival operator Eircom and MVNOs in the country which stand to benefit from any conditions imposed on the transaction.
Hutchison argues that the deal will be good for Ireland as the mobile market has shrunk following the financial crash and operators need scale to fund capital expenditure, particularly to build out LTE.
The deadline for the EC investigation is 24 April 2014.
