By Tony Hallett, 23 November 1999 14:25
NEWS The European Commission has made it clear that Vodafone Airtouch must prove that a merger with Mannesmann will benefit consumers. According to The Independent newspaper, Erkki Liikanen, the European Commissioner for Enterprise and Information Society, said the merged entity "must offer improved services for consumers". However, at the moment European competition law only dictates corporate marriages must not hurt markets - not that they must lead to improvements. Vodafone AirTouch's £79bn hostile bid for Germany's Mannesmann has already sparked a minor political row. While German companies have often expanded freely by acquisition overseas, there have been few high-profile takeovers of the country's major corporate players, and Chancellor Gerhard Schroder has been reported as saying a Vodafone buy may not be in the interests of Mannesmann employees. Schroder and British Prime Minister Tony Blair have since stated the outcome of the tussle should be decided by shareholders. Liikanen was speaking at the Global Cities Dialogue on the Information Society conference in Helsinki.
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