* Deal creates world's biggest advertising agency
* Brussels says merger does not damage competition
By Foo Yun Chee
BRUSSELS, Jan 9 (Reuters) - EU antitrust regulators said onThursday they had cleared the $35 billion merger of U.S.advertising agency Omnicom and French peer Publicis without conditions.
The deal creates the world's biggest advertising agency tocompete better with the likes of Google and Facebook in online ad sales. Omnicom now ranks second behindleader WPP, with Publicis in third place.
Reuters reported on Dec. 17 that the EU antitrust authoritywould approve the deal.
"The merged entity would be sufficiently constrained byseveral competitors, including large international advertisinggroups," the European Commission said in a statement. "Shouldthe merged entity increase its prices or decrease the quality ofits services, customers would have the ability to switch."
Analysts had expected the deal to trigger tough antitrustscrutiny because of the combined company's strong market shareand possible concerns from major clients.
The Commission did not see risks to damaging competition.
"Changing agencies would be facilitated by the biddingnature of the markets, the relatively short duration ofcontracts and the relatively limited costs incurred forswitching," the Commission said.
The French-U.S. giant will bring the accounts of majorcompetitors in a number of industries such as Apple andSamsung, or Coca-Cola and PepsiCo,under one roof. It will also group together Publicis agenciessuch as Saatchi & Saatchi and Leo Burnett with Omnicom's BBDOWorldwide and DDB Worldwide.
Regulators in the United States, South Korea, Canada, India,Turkey and South Africa have already given the green light tothe merger.
WPP (WPP)
