The proposed merger of VTR and Claro Chile has been cleared by Chile’s FNE (Fiscalia Nacional Economica / National Economic Prosecutor).
As reported by Diario Financiero, following its investigation the FNE was satisfied that the merger will not harm competition in the market – although the body did stipulate that Claro must return 10MHz of spectrum from both the 3.5GHz and 1700MHz bands to address antitrust concerns.
Additionally, Claro is obliged to sell off its satellite TV business for the merger to proceed. This is due to a condition of a previous merger which forbids VTR from entering this market sector. Beyond this, the FNE considers competition in the mobile, fixed broadband and pay TV segments sufficient to ensure that the merged entity will not become dominant.
When the proposed merger was announced in September last year, parent firms Liberty Global and America Movil said that they expected the merged unit to “enable significant investment for fixed fibre footprint expansion and to be at the forefront of 5G mobile delivery.”
