Press Release: Mergers: Commission clears acquisition of Austrian mobile phone operator tele.ring by T-Mobile, subject to conditions

The European Commission on 26 April 2006 cleared under the EU Merger Regulation the proposed acquisition of the Austrian mobile phone operator tele.ring by T-Mobile Austria, subject to conditions and obligations. The Commission’s in-depth investigation showed that the concentration, as initially notified, would have led to a substantial impediment of effective competition on the Austrian market for the provision of mobile telephony services to final consumers. However, in the light of the commitment by the merging parties to divest UMTS frequencies and mobile telephony sites of tele.ring to operators with lower market shares than T-Mobile Austria, the Commission finally concluded that the proposed transaction would not significantly impede effective competition in the European Economic Area (EEA) or a significant part of it.

European Commission: DG Competition: Merger cases: M.3916 http://ec.europa.eu/comm/competition/mergers/cases/index/m78.html#m_3916

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