The past few months have seen a number of major developments in
Europe regarding the possibility of "four-to-three"
mergers between mobile telecoms network operators – i.e.
transactions that have the effect that the number of major
operators in a country is reduced from four to three.
As we reported in
Competition World in January 2013, the
"four-to-three" merger between Hutchison and Orange in
Austria received conditional clearance from the European Commission
– sending a signal that competition authorities will allow
four-to-three mergers in certain circumstances, and subject to
remedies designed to encourage new entry into the sector (
Competition World, January 2013, "Technology: Mobile
telecoms M&A – A greenish light from Brussels"). We
concluded that, following the European Commission's decision,
there was a more optimistic prospect for in-market consolidation in
mobile markets than seemed to be the case after the US antitrust
authorities effectively
