The European Commission ...

The following selection of legal updates come from the Information Society Trends newsletter. We've selected all the articles that begin with "The European Commission ..." so they all match.

given its go-ahead to the merger between the leading UK and US mobile communications operators Vodafone and AirTouch Communications. The Commission had identified a competition problem in Germany, where the two companies are present in rival mobile communications joint ventures, E-Plus and D2, but Vodaphone has agreed to sell its stake in E-Plus.

The European Commission has cleared an operation by which Mannesmann of Germany and Bell Atlantic of the USA would take joint control of the Italian mobile operator Omnitel Pronto Italia (OPI). The operation is conditional on the successful outcome of the bid of Italy's Olivetti for taking-over the Italian incumbent operator Telecom Italia as this would lead to Olivetti exciting the shareholding of OPI.

The European Commission has approved the creation of Cegetel, a telecoms joint venture between France's Vivendi, the UK's BT, Germany's Mannesmann and America's SBC. The operation aims at turning Cegetel, initially a wholly-owned subsidiary of Vivendi, into the second full-service operator in France. As a result, Cegetel will be held 44% by Vivendi, 26% by BT, 15% by Mannesmann and 15% by SBC.

The European Commission has approved the US software giant Microsoft's licensing agreements with Internet service providers (ISPs). The Commission said the clearance only covers the agreements between Microsoft and the ISPs and that it had not ruled on the overall behaviour of Microsoft, in particular regarding a possible abuse of dominant position.

The European Commission has cleared the creation of Game Channel (GCG), a joint venture set up by Bertelsmann Interactive Studios, a fully-owned subsidiary of the German media giant Bertelsmann, and Viag Interkom, a German telecoms operator jointly owned by Germany's VIAG, Britain's BT and Norway's Telenor. GCG, which will be owned 50-50 by the two partners, will offer paid-for on-line games, downloadable electronic games on the Internet as well as a Web site on electronic games, mainly in the German language.

The European Commission has given its green light to the setting up by the German and French media giants Bertelsmann and Havas of BOL France, a joint venture specialised in the on-line sale of French language books.

The European Commission said it has decided to conclude its European Union-wide investigation into fixed and mobile operators' interconnection rates following an assessment of the substantial price reductions of more than 80% in some cases which have taken place in response to the investigation. The Commission said it intends to continue scrutinising competitive conditions within an overall enquiry of telecoms on key issues including current roaming conditions between mobile operators.

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