CMA punts back deadline for Vodafone and Three merger decision

The statutory deadline for Phase 2 of the CMA’s investigation was previously slated for 12 October 2024 – however an updated document on the CMA site says that: “The Inquiry Group now considers that it will not be possible to complete the investigation and to publish its final report within the revised reference period.”

The CMA cited reasons for pushing it back to December 7 as the ‘very wide scope of this enquiry’ and the technical and regulatory complexity of the sector, which has required it to understand the telco ecosystem of operators, MVNOs, and the network sharing agreements that exist in the space.

It also pointed to the amount of technical material provided by Voda and Three as part of a joint business plan, the need to look into the proposed spectrum sharing deal with VMO2, and “the need to complete the CMA’s econometric estimation of consumer demand for mobile services, which is based on granular and voluminous third-party data”.  

In other words, they’re still trying to get their collective head around it.

“In the exercise of its discretion under section 39(3) of the Act, the Inquiry Group has decided that these factors fall within the category of ‘special reasons’ justifying an 8-week extension of the revised reference period,” states the document. “Following this decision, the period within which the report on this reference is to be prepared and published is now 7 December 2024. The Inquiry Group aims to complete the inquiry as soon as possible. As such, the report may be published in advance of this date.”

Vodafone and Three agreed to merge their UK businesses a year ago, and the CMA launched the first phase of its investigation into the impact of the deal in January and then moved on to a more in-depth second phase in April.

As part of that process, the CMA invited interested parties to submit views on the potential impact the deal would have on the market, which apart from anything else would reduce the number of UK operators from four to three. Some of these it published, with BT’s being the lengthiest and most overtly in opposition to the merger.  

It seems all concerned will have to hold on a bit longer to find out whether the CMA gives the deal the green light, which will no doubt prompt a few more rounds of public statements from Voda and Three as to the benefits they believe a merged entity will bring.