The Polish Office of Competition and Consumer Protection has cleared the merger of ITI and Canal+ without conditions

The merger of Canal+, a subsidiary of the Vivendi group, and ITI Neovision was cleared by the Polish Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (UOKiK) without conditions. Both parties produce and distribute pay-TV channels in Poland and in addition, both are operators of satellite pay-TV platforms – Canal+’s platform in Poland is Cyfra+, while ITI is the operator of the n platform.
The merger was notified to the European Commission in February 2012 and was referred by the EC back to Poland under Article 4(4) at the request of the parties. The review by the Polish authority, UOKiK, included an investigation of the market for licensing of pay-TV channels in Poland, the market for retail pay-TV distribution, and the market for access to TV advertising space. UOKiK approved the transaction and concluded that the market for pay-TV in Poland will remain competitive, since the merged entity will continue to face significant competitive pressure from satellite pay-TV operator Polsat, as well as a number of established and growing cable and IPTV companies. A CRA team including Laurent Flochel, Hristina Dantcheva and Adrien Cervera-Jackson advised Canal+ throughout the notification process.