Antitrust regulators to scrutinise Thomson-Reuters merger
BRUSSELS (AFP) — EU antitrust regulators vowed on Monday to scrutinise Canadian group Thomson Corp's takeover of British financial news and data provider Reuters over concerns the deal could stifle competition.
After an initial review of the deal, the European Commission said it was launching an in-depth probe running until the end of February to determine if the planned merger represented a threat to competition in Europe.
"The Commission's initial market investigation indicates that the proposed merger would raise serious doubts as regards adverse effects on competition in several markets of the financial information sector," it said in a statement.
Separately, Thomson said that in the United States the Department of Justice had set a deadline of January 15 to hand down its ruling on whether the merger poses competition problems.
"Today's developments bring clarity and transparency to the regulatory timetables on both sides of the Atlantic," said current Reuters chief executive Tom Glocer, who is supposed to head the merged company.
"Thomson and Reuters remain committed to working with them through to the end of their investigations," he added.
Along with privately held US group Bloomberg, Thomson and Reuters currently dominate the market for providing financial data to banks, investment funds and other financial services firms.
Thomson announced plans in May to buy Reuters for 8.7 billion pounds (12.6 billion euros, 17.7 billion dollars), subject to regulatory and shareholder approval.
Reuters said at the end of July that its takeover was on course to be completed before the end of 2007.
The European Commission voiced concerns about the merger's impact specifically on the provision of data-feeds, databases, broker reports and news services.
Legal experts had widely expected the EU antitrust regulators to take a closer look at the deal because of the numerous overlapping businesses the two companies are in.
Thomson-Reuters will have 34 percent of the financial information and data market compared with Bloomberg's 33 percent at present. Reuters currently controls 23 percent and Thomson 11 percent.
