The transaction came under investigation by the French Competition Authority (“FCA”), as well as the French media regulator. Iliad, a major player in the European telecom sector, engaged FTI Consulting subsidiary Compass Lexecon to provide expert reports to demonstrate the anti-competitive effects of the merger.
Commercial broadcasters TF1 and M6 abandoned their merger plans in September 2022, given the significant remedy requirements needed to obtain clearance for the deal.
Compass Lexecon submitted several expert reports and notes to the FCA during Phase I and Phase II of its investigation concerning the impact of the transaction.
The FCA’s Phase II investigation found that the merger could have significant anti-competitive effects, especially in the television advertising and distribution services markets.
Compass Lexecon submitted several expert reports and notes to the FCA in Phase I and Phase II and to sectoral regulators concerning the impact of the contemplated transaction on the advertising and distribution markets, as well as on the first remedy package submitted by the merging parties.
To demonstrate how the merger could negatively impact competition in the market, Compass Lexecon performed a detailed analysis of the product market for advertising services, assessing the competitive constraint digital advertising could exert on TV advertising.
Our analysis confirmed that TV and digital advertising were not sufficiently substitutable to represent competitive constraints comparable to those exerted by the merging parties, a view endorsed by the FCA.
Experts demonstrated how the advertising and distribution markets would be negatively impacted due to how closely the parties were competing on the viewer side.
When the merging parties proposed a remedy package to the FCA, our experts commented on the evident limits of the package.
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