The Antitrust Authority has asked the Restrictive Trade Practices Tribunal to delay its approval last week of the takeover of satellite broadcaster YES by Bezeq The Israeli Telecommunication Co. Ltd. (TASE: BEZQ). The Antitrust Authority added that it has not yet decided whether to appeal the ruling, and asked the tribunal for time to study it.
The Antitrust Authority wants to prevent a situation in which it does decide to appeal while at the same time Bezeq and YES agree on the terms of the takeover and then claim that the Antitrust Authority unnecessarily delayed the deal for irrelevant reasons.
The Restrictive Trade Practices Tribunal allowed the takeover last week, setting conditions to maintain three broadcast platforms: cable, satellite, and IPTV. The Antitrust Authority does not agree to Bezeq controlling both satellite and IPTV broadcasting, but the tribunal dismissed this argument, saying that there was little difference between Bezeq owning a little less or a little more than 50% of YES, provided that there are binding conditions to prevent Bezeq leveraging a majority holding in YES.
Bezeq currently owns 49.8% of YES, formally known as DBS Satellite Services (1998) Ltd., Eurocom Group owns 30%, Polar Investments Ltd. (TASE: PLR) owns 7.92%, Gilat Satellite Networks Ltd. (Nasdaq: GILT; TASE: GILT) owns 5.01%, and Lidan Ltd. owns 4.66%.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on February 9, 2009
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