Providing sufficient consideration for efficiencies in the competitive assessment of mergers and agreements among competitors is crucial to ensure economic efficiency and competitive markets benefiting consumers. In Europe, however, current competition policy practices impose significant challenges for comprehensively recognizing the efficiencies resulting from mergers and agreements in investment driven industries such as the telecommunications sector.

In a new report prepared for the European Telecoms Network Operators’ Association (ETNO), The Brattle Group reviews the scope for efficiency arguments in mergers and agreements between telecom companies and demonstrates that the European Commission’s legal framework for assessing efficiencies can be expanded. The authors provide an analysis of how a more comprehensive assessment of efficiencies can utilize existing economic tools to improve current practices, and provide guidance for telecoms companies to claim efficiencies successfully.

The report, “Efficiencies in Telecommunication Network Cooperations and Mergers,”– coauthored by Brattle Academic Advisor Kai-Uwe Kühn and Principals Adina Claici and Konstantin Ebinger – can be found below.

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