DOJ Approves S&P’s $44B IHS Bid

The DOJ has granted Business information provider S&P and IHS Markit antitrust approval for their planned merger, on condition it sell some businesses and scrap a non-compete agreement with GasBuddy, reported Reuters. 

The $44 billion deal was initially announced in November 2020. To win approval for the deal, the companies agreed to sell three of IHS Markit’s price reporting agency (PRA) businesses. The department said the businesses are: Oil Price Information Services (OPIS); Coals, Metals, and Mining (CMM); and PetrochemWire (PCW).

Related: UK Regulator Pauses S&P’s $44B IHS Bid

The businesses will be bought by News Corp (NWSA.O)under a $1.15 billion deal reached in August. read more

In a court filing, the Justice Department said that S&P Global and IHS are a small number of companies that provide PRA services and “compete vigorously in each of the relevant markets, resulting in lower prices and increased quality and innovation for PRA customers.”

One of them, OPIS, collects and sells information related to U.S. retail gasoline prices. GasBuddy has been one of OPIS’ main sources of data since 2009. Since 2016, OPIS has had exclusive rights to GasBuddy’s data for 20 years.

Because of the agreement, GasBuddy, which uses crowdsourced information to help people find deals on retail gasoline, has been stopped from creating a service to compete with OPIS, the department said.

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