Do Four-To-Three Mobile Mergers Harm Consumers?

In the last decade, Competition Authorities have become sceptical about four-to-three mergers between mobile network operators. In this article, Jorge Padilla, Thilo Klein, Paul Reynolds and Martin Wickens¹ evaluate studies on the effects of such mergers, which show they have led to a higher service quality without increasing prices. Therefore, there is no sound basis to presume such a merger will likely harm consumers. Instead, careful assessment of the likely effects on prices and service quality is needed to determine whether a particular merger will make the consumers worse or better off.

This article summarises a study commissioned by Vodafone UK Limited and Hutchison 3G UK Limited. The full study can be found in the latestedition of the European Competition Law Review here.