The Finnish Competition and Consumer Authority (FCCA) decided yesterday to approve the deal in which Elisa Corporation acquires control of the companies PPO-Yhtiöt Oy, Kymen Puhelin Oy and Telekarelia Oy. However, the FCCA imposed conditions on the deal. The conditions concern fixed network broadband services provided to consumers in Joensuu, Kontiolahti and Outokumpu.
The parties to the deal operate on the Finnish market for telephone and telecommunications services and their core activities are services provided in fixed and mobile networks. The condition for the approval of the deal was that Elisa makes commitments to the FCCA concerning fixed network broadband services provided to consumers in Joensuu, Kontiolahti and Outokumpu.
In the conditions, Elisa commits to an asset deal in which it sells the overlapping network entity owned by the parties in Joensuu and Kontiolahti and the connected consumer agreements on broadband services. Elisa will also provide the buyer with the option to acquire the overlapping DSL network entity in the municipality of Outokumpu. Without the commitments, the prices of fixed network broadband services in the area would have been at risk of increasing.
The FCCA investigated the effects of the concentration on fixed network broadband services also in the operating areas of PPO and Kymen Puhelin. However, the operations of the parties to the concentration do not significantly overlap in those areas, and Elisa quit selling new fixed network broadband subscriptions in the area already in August 2008. Therefore, the threshold for intervention under the Competition Act was not exceeded on the markets in question.
The FCCA also examined competition, for example, on the markets for mobile broadband services, comprehensive ICT services provided to businesses and backbone services and on the mast market, but came to the conclusion that the concentration does not impede effective competition on the markets in question. On the markets, the pressure of competition from other market players is so significant that competition problems are considered unlikely even though the concentration will make Elisa the market leader on some of the markets.
The FCCA decision issued today contains several business secrets concerning the parties. The decision can only be published after the secrets have been removed, which will take approximately two weeks.
Further information:
Senior Research Officer Keijo Ranta, tel. +358 29 505 3365
Head of Research Maarit Taurula, tel. +358 29 505 3381
E-mail addresses: firstname.lastname@kkv.fi