Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 6 December 2005
104 Mr. Eamon Ryan asked the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment if a submission has been made to the Competition Authority with regard to the proposed purchase of the Meteor mobile phone company and NTL cable company; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [34537/05]
Amharc ar fhreagraThe proposed acquisition by UPC Ireland BV — ultimately owned by Liberty Global Inc. which also owns Chorus — of MS Irish Cable Holdings Limited, trading as NTL, was notified to the Competition Authority on 24 May 2005. This proposal constituted a "media merger" under the Competition Act 2002.
The Competition Authority carried out a full competition assessment of the case and on 4 November 2005 determined that the acquisition would not substantially lessen competition provided the parties comply with the conditions set out in its determination. While the authority found no significant overlap between the merging parties' businesses since both Chorus and NTL serve different geographic regions, nonetheless competition concerns arose because of cross-ownership issues involving Chorus and BskyB, which were compounded by the acquisition of NTL. While these cross-ownership issues are complex, the matter was resolved to the satisfaction of the authority through the imposition of 19 conditions in its determination.
Under the media merger provisions in the Competition Act, my role in the regulatory process is confined to considering the acquisition in the context of the relevant criteria listed at section 23(10) of the Act. These criteria essentially relate to media plurality and cross-media issues.
In addition to its competition assessment and determination, the authority provided me with its opinion on the impact of the acquisition in respect of the relevant criteria. The authority essentially considered that the acquisition would not raise concerns in respect of these criteria. Having considered the advice of my Department on 2 December, I decided not to make any order prohibiting the acquisition. The proposed acquisition of Meteor by Eircom was notified to the Competition Authority on 12 August 2005 and cleared by the authority on 18 November. However, as this acquisition did not constitute a media merger under the Competition Act, I had no role in the regulatory process.
