(The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.)
By Pierre Briancon
BERLIN, Sept 13 (Reuters Breakingviews) - British regulators will okay Vodafone’s merger with CK Hutchison’s Three without structural remedies. Previous such deals have ended up blocked or, like Orange-MásMóvil, subject to disposals. It flags that new investment is more key than antitrust worries over consumer prices.
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CONTEXT NEWS
Vodafone's $19 billion merger with Three UK could push up bills for millions of mobile customers and impact providers like Sky Mobile by reducing the number of networks from four to three, Britain's competition regulator said on Friday.
However, the Competition and Markets Authority $(CMA)$ also said the deal could improve network quality and speed up the deployment of next generation 5G, adding it would examine solutions to its concerns before making a final decision on the matter in December.
The tie-up, announced 15 months ago between Vodafone and Three UK, owned by Hong Kong's CK Hutchison, has challenged the regulator's previous stance that four networks are required to keep prices low.
(Editing by George Hay and Streisand Neto)
((For previous columns by the author, Reuters customers can click on pierre.briancon@thomsonreuters.com))
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