The European Commission has recently given Nokia a go signal to pursue its plan of acquiring Alcatel-Lucent which coincides with our previous report.
Under the EU Merger Regulation, the commission should oversee mergers and acquisitions to “prevent concentrations that would significantly impede effective competition in the European Economic Area or any substantial part of it”. (If only our government has a similar policy in place…)
After careful consideration, the EU Commission sees nothing wrong with the merger between Nokia and the French global telecommunication company as both entities has strong presence on the respective regions in which they operate (Europe for the former while North America for the latter).
Furthermore, the European Commission concluded that the acquisition “would not raise competition concerns” between other notable players in the market, namely Ericsson, Huawei, Samsung and ZTE. The commission added that the merger will not “make it harder for new or small players to enter and expand in the market.”
