The Austrian antitrust regulator has decided not to appeal Telekom Austria’s acquisition of Yesss!, paving the way for Hutchison to complete its €1.3bn acquisition of Orange Austria from France Telecom.
The country’s cartel court had ruled that the…
The Austrian antitrust regulator has decided not to appeal Telekom Austria‘s acquisition of Yesss!, paving the way for Hutchison to complete its €1.3bn acquisition of Orange Austria from France Telecom.
The country’s cartel court had ruled that the Austrian incumbent could acquire MVNO Yesss! from Orange Austria in a €390m deal, and analysts had predicted that the BWB would appeal the decision.
However a spokesman from the regulator today said that while it still objected to the deal and had major concerns, an appeal had no realistic chance of success.
Telekom Austria told TelecomFinance it was delighted to have cleared the final regulatory hurdle and was looking forward to completing the deal in the near future.
As TelecomFinance previously reported, Hutchison won approval from the EC and the local telecoms regulator last week for the Orange Austria deal after agreeing to stringent remedies.
According to the EC, Hutchison agreed to divest radio spectrum and additional rights to an interested new entrant in the Austrian mobile telephony market.
The new operator will have the right to acquire spectrum not only from Hutchison, but also additional spectrum at an auction planned in 2013 by the Austrian telecom regulator, the EC said.
Hutchison will also offer wholesale access to its network for up to 30% of its capacity to up to 16 MVNOs in the coming 10 years.
The disposal of Yesss! was a pre-emptive step by Hutchison – along with selling off frequencies, base station sites and certain intellectual property rights – to increase the deal’s chances of gaining antitrust approval. The CEO of Hutchison’s local unit recently said that an appeal by the BWB would undermine the entire deal.
In a statement today Hutchison said: “We are delighted that both the Bundeskartellanwalt (Federal Cartel Attorney) and the Bundeswettbewerbsbehörde (Austrian Competition Authority) have cleared the way for the Yesss! sale and thus let the 3Austria acquisition of Orange Austria go forward.”
When the transaction was first announced France Telecom said it expected to close in mid-2012.
With the deal now likely to complete, Austria’s mobile market will shrink from four major players to three.