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South Africa: Communications watchdog fights for merger review power

By  |  May 24, 2014

South Africa’s communications regulator is reportedly vying for the power to review certain mergers in the telecommunications industry regardless of independent rulings from the nation’s Competition Commission.

The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa is reportedly in dispute with the Commission over what the ICASA calls a failure to allocate more spectrum to wireless operators.

The ICASA has blamed that failure on various merger deals struck in the industry, including the recent network sharing agreement struck by MTN and Telkom. This month Vodacom announced plans to acquire Neotel.

Those deals have not been brought before the ICASA, the authority said, and added that regardless of how the Commission rules on the transactions, the ICASA would likely have to review the deals as well.

Full content: Humanipo

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