(Adds Hutchison, lawyer comments)
By Foo Yun Chee
BRUSSELS, May 28 (Reuters) - CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd
has won a victory against an EU antitrust decision
blocking its 10.3 billion pound ($12.6 billion) bid to buy O2 UK
from Spain's Telefonica in 2016.
Thursday's ruling by the Luxembourg-based General Court
marks a rare setback for the European Commission's competition
watchdog but will cheer a telecoms industry seeking a looser
rein on mergers aimed at sharing heavy 5G investments.
Hutchison welcomed the court ruling, criticising regulators
for a "misconceived default view" on four-to-three telecoms
mergers, which it said had put a brake on consolidation in the
sector.
Retired billionaire Li Ka-shing's Hutchinson conglomerate
had aimed to become Britain's biggest mobile telecoms network
operator by combining its Three UK with O2 to compete against
BT's EE and Vodafone.
The 2016 deal, however, raised red flags with EU competition
enforcers, wary of telecoms mergers that reduce the number of
players from four to three and could push up prices. Hutchison
subsequently appealed the EU veto.
The General Court annulled the EU ruling, saying the
watchdog had failed to prove that the merged company would harm
competition or raise prices.
Judges also said the Commission had confused several
concepts and "considerably widened the scope of the rules on
concentrations of undertakings and distorted the concept of
important competitive force".
The Commission said it would analyse the judgment before
deciding whether to appeal at Europe's highest court, the EU
Court of Justice.
The judgment marks a resounding victory for Hutchison and
the entire European mobile telecoms industry and possibly the
most important over the last 15 years over mergers, said Douglas
Lahnborg, an antitrust partner at law firm Orrick.
"This raises the bar for the Commission to prohibit four-to
-three transactions, not only in the mobile industry but also
other sectors," he said.
($1 = 0.8151 pounds)
(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee
Editing by David Goodman and Lisa Shumaker)
Vodafone (VOD)
BT (BT.A)
