Press Release: Mergers: Commission approves proposed merger between UK subsidiaries of France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom, subject to conditions

The European Commission cleared on 1 March 2010 the proposed merger of Orange UK and T-Mobile UK, respectively France Télécom's (FT) and Deutsche Telekom's (DT) UK subsidiaries. The decision is conditional upon the amendment of an existing network sharing agreement with Hutchison 3G UK (3UK), to ensure that there remain sufficient competitors in the market, and the divestiture of a quarter of the combined spectrum of the merging parties in the 1800 MHz band, which is one of three frequency bands currently used for mobile communications in the UK. In light of these commitments, the UK Office of Fair Trading (OFT) withdrew its request to refer the case for review by the UK Competition Authorities.