EC clears TomTom's $4.5 billion Tele Atlas buyout; may have a different yardstick for Nokia's proposed $8.1 billion acquisition of Navteq

TomTom NV, Europe's largest maker of car-navigation devices, won European Commission (EC) permission to buy digital mapping company Tele Atlas NV for €2.9 billion ($4.5 billion) two days back. This has put Nokia's proposed $8.1 billion acquisition of mapmaker Navteq under pressure, as European regulators suggested the two deals are quite similar.

Along with Tele Atlas, Navteq is one of the only two producers of navigable maps offering complete coverage of North America and Europe. Navteq's customers happen to include Google, in addition to Yahoo and providers of mobile phones and GPS devices.

At the end of March, the EC issued a statement announcing a detailed investigation into Nokia's planned buyout of Navteq and voicing concerns that the deal might "in the light of the duopoly market for navigable digital maps and Nokia's strong position [in] the market for mobile handsets, lead to a significant impediment of competition."

But in the same statement, the EC also said that the Nokia-Navteq merger brought up issues along the same lines as those involved in the TomTom-Tele Atlas deal, a business arrangement then already under "detailed investigation" by the regulatory agency.

It has now come to light that the EC conveyed the same mixed message in "confidential" questionnaires sent out to customers and competitors of Nokia, and leaked by Reuters this week.

"Although the two transactions involve largely the same markets...the merger regulation obliges the Commission to investigate separately the Nokia/Navteq merger," regulators said in a questionnaire dated in February. "[But] if you responded to the market investigation in the TomTom-Tele Atlas case, you can provide the same answers by 'copying and pasting' the submission you made on that occasion."