Decision Nº M/06/054 from Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, 2006-09-14

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Parties: Pearson (FT),Mergermarket
• Date: 14 September 2006
• Decision Number: M/06/054
• Status: Cleared (Phase 1)
• Court: Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (Ireland)
• Decision Date: 14 September 2006

Merger Notification M/06/054 – Pearon (FT)/ MergerMarket

DETERMINATION OF MERGER NOTIFICATION M/06/054 –

PEARSON (FT)/MERGER MARKET

Section 21 of the Competition Act 2002

Proposed acquisition by Financial Times Group Limited of

Mergermarket Limited

Dated 14/09/06

Introduction

1. On 15 August 2006, the Compet ition Authority (“the Authority”), in

accordance with Sect ion 18 (1) of the Competition Act, 2002 (“ the Act”)

was notified, on a mandatory basis, of a proposal whereby the Financial

Times Group Limited (“FT”), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Pearson plc

(“Pearson”), would acquire the entire issued share capital of Mergermarket

Limited (“Mergermarket”) (“the proposed transa ction”).

2. The Authority forwarded a copy of the notification to the Minister and

notified the undertakings involved that it considers the acquisition to be a

media merger, in accordance with section 23 (1) of the Act.

The Undertakings Involved

3. FT, the acquirer, publishes the Financial Times newspaper and operates

FT.com, an online version of the Financial Times with archive articles and

updates and breaking news stories.

4. An additional service offered by FT is ‘FT Research Centre’. FT Researc h

Centre is an international research servic e providing customised financial

and economic r esearch. The service is aimed at SMEs without an in-house

research capacity.

5. ‘FT Interactive’ is a f urther service offered by FT c omprising of the supply

of time-sensitive fina ncial market pricing data and decision-support tools

for institutional and trading clients.

6. All of the above services and the Financial Times newspaper are offe red by

FT are available to customers in the State.

7. FT has a 50% share in the publication, T he Economist. The Ec onomist is

also a vailable online, however, l ike FT.com, access t o most of its articles

and news (“content”) is by subscription.

8. Some informationa l news services are available on-line on F T.com and on

the onlin e version of The Economist without subscription. These services,

however, while a llowing you to review current news topics, do not a llow

the user to download certain of the articles in question without having

subscribed.