European Commission approves T-Mobile - Orange merger

The European Commission (EC) yesterday gave its conditional nod to the proposed merger between T-Mobile UK and Orange UK, subsidiaries of telecom giants Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom respectively, creating the UK's largest mobile network operator.

Brussels-based EC, the executive arm of the European Union has set a condition to amend an existing network sharing agreement with Hutchison Whampoa's 3G UK (3UK), to ensure that there remain sufficient competitors in the market.

EC also called for the sale of 25 per cent of the combined radio spectrum of T-Mobile and Orange in the 1800 MHz band, which is suitable for the next generation wireless technology.

In the light of the above conditions, the UK's competition watchdog, Office of Fair Trading (OFT) withdrew its request to refer the case for review by the country's competition authorities.

Last month OFT sought an investigation into the proposed tie-up between the UK operations of T-Mobile and Orange on the grounds that the deal could jeopardise competition. (See: UK's competition regulator seeks review of T-Mobile/Orange merger)

"I am happy that we managed to resolve the competition issues in this case quickly in close cooperation with the member state concerned," said European competition commissioner Joaquín Almunia.