The merger between TF1 and M6: the European Commission rejects jurisdiction after finding that there would be no joint control (European Commission, Case C.1886)

Abstract

This case note comments on the European Commission's decision relating to the merger between TF1 and M6, two major French TV broadcasters. The decision concludes that Bouygues would have sole control over the combined TF1-M6 group, and so there would be no joint control by Bouygues and Bertelsmann. This in turn meant that the transaction did not have an EU dimension and that the Commission did not have jurisdiction to review it. The decision was issued after a third party, the French telecom provider Iliad, formally petitioned the Commission to seize jurisdiction over the deal and review it.

The Commission’s decision rejecting jurisdiction constitutes only a small chapter in a much wider story, revolving around the planned (but ultimately abandoned) merger between France’s two largest private TV broadcasters.

The note (I) places the decision in its broader context, (II) explains the key issue the Commission had to deal with, (III) summarizes the Commission’s reasoning and (IV) provides a few comments.

The note was published in Concurrences Law Review, in a section that chronicles major decisions in European merger control (Chroniques Concentrations, March 2023):

Simon Vande Walle, The European Commission rejects jurisdiction over a concentration in the TV broadcasting sector after finding that there would be no joint control (Commission decision of 10 January 2022, Iliad, Case C.1886), Concurrences Competition Law Review, Nr. 1-2023, 105-107 (March 2023).

Keywords: competition law, antitrust, merger control

JEL Classification: antitrust