TDF/ITAS Abuse of Dominance Investigation

In January 2020, the French NCA concluded that the transaction in the French broadcasting sector by which TDF acquired ITAS, completed in October 2016 without prior clearance, did not constitute an abuse of dominant position (Decision 20-D-01 of January 16, 2020). The French NCA investigated the transaction following a complaint by Towercast considering that TDF hampered competition due to a significant strengthening of its position by means of this transaction. Towercast noted that TDF enjoyed dominance on the upstream and downstream wholesale markets for digital terrestrial television (DTT) broadcasting, and that ITAS was one of its last competitors in that market. Despite TDF's strong position, the French NCA concluded that the acquisition in itself could not constitute an infringement of Article 102 TFEU and that TDF did not demonstrate any abusive conduct either.

Compass Lexecon provided economic advice to TDF. We analyzed the extent to which the acquisition of ITAS resulted in a strengthening of the alleged dominant position in the provision of broadcasting services to DTT channels or bundles of channels. We also established that contrary to Towercast’s claim, the transaction had not resulted in a price increase, thus ruling out that the transaction could have led to an elimination of competition in a substantial part of the market.

The CL team comprised David Sevy, Jérémiah Juts and Alexandre Nouvel. We worked closely with TDF’s advisors, Hugues Calvet and Yelena Trifounovitch of Bredin Prat and Fréderic Salat-Baroux of Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP.