GTE confident WorldCom merger will be blocked
Wednesday May 13, 9:10 pm Eastern Time
BRUSSELS, May 13 (Reuters) - GTE Corp. (GTE - news) said on Wednesday it is confident U.S. and European Union antitrust authorities will conclude that the merger of WorldCom Inc. (WCOM - news) and MCI Communications Corp. (MCIC - news) is anticompetitive.
GTE made the comment in a statement after the EU's antitrust watchdog completed a two-day closed-door hearing into the merger in Brussels. GTE stated its objections to the proposed $37 billion merger at the hearing.
''The focus of discussion was on the threat of Internet dominance that would be posed by combining the No. 1 and (No.) 2 Internet backbone providers,'' GTE spokesman Peter Thonis said.
''GTE is very pleased with the proceedings, which were thorough and effective in their examination of the threat to competition from the merger, especially the monopolisation of the Internet,'' he said.
''We are confident that the antitrust authorities on both sides of the Atlantic will conclude that the merger is anticompetitive,'' he added.
''We will continue to cooperate in these investigations,'' he said.
WorldCom and MCI had said they would argue at the hearing that their merger would not give them control of the Internet.
The Commission has declined to comment on the routine hearing, as is usual in EU merger investigations.
Although WorldCom and MCI are both based in the United States, they need EU regulatory approval because they do important business in the 15-nation bloc.
The deal has come under heavy criticism, mainly from other U.S. phone companies.
The European Commission, the EU's clearing house for large mergers and acquisitions, started a full-scale investigation into the deal in March over concerns about the two partners' combined Internet backbone holding.
The Commission has been cooperating closely with its U.S. competition authority counterpart, the Justice Department, to try to avoid conflicting conclusions on the merger.
The EU has until mid-July to reach a final decision.
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