Both Reuters and Billboard yesterday reported that competition watchdogs in the European Commission are about to announce that they plan to undertake an in-depth review into Universal Music's proposed acquisition of BMG Music Publishing, which sounds like fun.
As previously reported, French owned Universal were the preferred bidders to acquire German owned Bertelsmann's publishing company, with the former planning on merging the latter with its existing music publishing operation. However, that deal needs regulatory approval, and despite gaining such approval from US officials, getting the OK from the EC was never going to be so straightforward.
The EC could have cleared the merger based on its investigations so far if officials felt the case for allowing it was clear cut, but the fact they are seemingly proposing more in depth investigations suggests there are tricky issues to be addressed before approval can be given.
While Universal have seemed confident of winning approval throughout the process, the need for a more in-depth investigation is not particularly surprising given that pan-European independent music body IMPALA are opposing the merger. EC officials will be wary of such vocal opposition to the deal after the trade body successfully demonstrated to the European Courts earlier this year that those very officials failed to address all issues before allowing the Sony BMG recorded music merger back in 2004.
Reports suggest at meetings between EC officials and Universal and BMG in London, the music companies were told a secondary review of their proposals would be launched on or around 8 Dec. It is also reported that officials told the music firms that they did not see any major obstacles to their plans but that, in the light of the current review of the Sony BMG merger, they did not want to rush into providing approval for the new merger deal.
Neither Universal or BMG have as yet commented on the reports.