Vodafone not bothered by EC objections to Liberty Global deal

The European Commission has apparently notified Vodafone of some concerns it needs to be addressed before it will approve its acquisition of Liberty Global assets.

The acquisition was announced almost a year ago but such is the way of these things that the EC has only just got around to flagging up its issues with it now. The objections haven’t been published but they have been widely reported and are presumably not a million miles away from those flagged up at the end of last year.

Anyway it doesn’t seem to have thrown Vodafone out of its stride at all and it issued the following statement. “The Commission’s Statement of Objections is an expected part of the review process. We will review the Statement and continue our constructive dialogue with the Commission.

“This is a significant, pan-European transaction that will create a fully-converged national challenger in four European markets, and we remain confident that the Commission will recognise that it will deliver considerable benefits for consumers and competition. We still expect to receive final approval in the middle of this year.”

Reading between the lines this seems to be Vodafone saying “we got this”. Being given a bunch of hoops to jump through was always going to be an inevitable part of this process and it’s probably a relief to have finally received them. Vodafone will now spend a couple of months chatting to the EC to make sure all its objections are properly addressed, with its fingers crossed throughout.