The EU Commission analyzes two national telecom merger cases, and finds an associated increase in prices in the Netherlands case, but not in the Austria case (T-Mobile / Orange), (T-Mobile / tele.ring)

Ex post analysis of two mobile telecom mergers: T-Mobile/tele.ring in Austria and T-Mobile/Orange in the Netherlands* In a nutshell: Ex post evaluation of merger decisions is a valuable tool for improving the understanding of markets and to assess merger control policy. To provide reliable results, ex post evaluation requires a careful definition of the outcome variable of interest and of the estimation methods, in particular when analysing complex industries. The results of a recent ex post study published by the Commission suggest that the T-Mobile/Orange merger in the Netherlands in 2007 was associated with a price increase. In contrast, the remedied T-Mobile/tele.ring merger in Austria in 2006 did not result in increased prices. Introduction What happened to prices after a merger