Tuesday, March 08, 2011

Europe - EC has approved Ericsson's acquisition of the multi-switching business of Nortel

[ec] The European Commission has approved under the EU Merger Regulation the proposed acquisition by Swedish company Ericsson over the Multi-Service Switching Business of Canadian Nortel Network Corporation. After examining the operation, the Commission concluded that the transaction would not significantly impede effective competition in the European Economic Area (EEA) or any substantial part of it.

Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson ("Ericsson") provides telecommunication equipment and related services to mobile and fixed network operators. It comprises four main business units: Networks, Global Services, Multimedia, and CDMA and GSM Business.

The Nortel Multi-Service Switching (MSS) Business is globally active in the sale of MSS switches to service providers delivering in real-time a variety of data, voice, and video services. The MSS Business also provides certain associated services such as maintenance and support services.

Both Ericsson and the Nortel MSS Business are MSS suppliers. Switches are devices used in the transmission of data. Ericsson is also active in the provision of complete networking solutions to telecommunication operators mostly in the GSM, CDMA, UMTS/W-CDMA (an interface standard used in 3G) and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technologies, where MSS are used as an input.

The Commission's market investigation identified no competition concerns in relation to the parties' overlapping activities in the market for MSS switches. MSS switches are only sold as replacement, add-ons and extensions to existing customers as there are newer switching technologies.

Commission approves the acquisition of Nortel's Multi-Service Switching business by Ericsson

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