Suzanne Shep­pard

The Cari­com Com­pe­ti­tion Com­mis­sion says there are grounds for an in­ves­ti­ga­tion of the US$3 bil­lion ac­qui­si­tion of Colum­bus In­ter­na­tion­al by Ca­ble and Wire­less Com­mu­ni­ca­tions (CWC).The body, which is re­spon­si­ble for en­sur­ing the ef­fi­cient op­er­a­tion of re­gion­al mar­kets in the Cari­com Sin­gle Mar­ket and Econ­o­my (CSME), said in a state­ment yes­ter­day that it will con­sult with mem­ber states to de­ter­mine and agree on its ju­ris­dic­tion to in­ves­ti­gate the merg­er which was fi­nalised on March 31.

It said the mat­ter could be re­ferred to Cari­com's Coun­cil for Trade and Eco­nom­ic De­vel­op­ment (Cot­ed) "if there is a dif­fer­ence of opin­ion be­tween the Com­mis­sion and the mem­ber state re­gard­ing the na­ture and ef­fects of the busi­ness con­duct or the ju­ris­dic­tion of the in­ves­ti­gat­ing au­thor­i­ty."The re­gion­al agency said in keep­ing with Ar­ti­cle 176.1 of the Re­vised Treaty of Ch­aguara­mas it com­plet­ed a pre­lim­i­nary ex­am­i­na­tion of the CWC/Colum­bus agree­ment and con­clud­ed that the in­ves­ti­ga­tion is war­rant­ed.

"In this re­gard, the Com­mis­sion will now un­der­take to com­plete the re­main­ing pro­ce­dur­al steps un­der Ar­ti­cle 176 of the RTC to fur­ther progress this mat­ter," it said.The Com­mis­sion said the con­sul­ta­tion phase with mem­ber states will be com­plet­ed "in a time­ly man­ner" and it will then pro­vide an up­date on its next steps.

Last De­cem­ber, the Com­mis­sion an­nounced that it was study­ing the pro­posed ac­qui­si­tion by CWC of re­gion­al ca­ble provider Colum­bus In­ter­na­tion­al af­ter news of the trans­ac­tion sparked reg­u­la­to­ry con­cerns across the Caribbean.The Com­mis­sion mon­i­tors busi­ness ac­tiv­i­ty across the CSME with the aim of pro­mot­ing and main­tain­ing com­pe­ti­tion and en­hance­ment of eco­nom­ic ef­fi­cien­cy, as well as pro­hibit­ing an­ti-com­pet­i­tive con­duct and en­sur­ing con­sumer wel­fare and pro­tec­tion of con­sumer in­ter­ests.

The an­nounce­ment by CWC of the com­ple­tion of the ac­qui­si­tion of 100 per cent of the eq­ui­ty of Colum­bus came days af­ter the trans­ac­tion was ap­proved by the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Au­thor­i­ty of T&T (TATT) and the Bar­ba­dos Fair Trad­ing Com­mis­sion (FTC).Months ear­li­er, in No­vem­ber 2014, CWC an­nounced plans for the ac­qui­si­tion. The com­pa­ny to be cre­at­ed from the merg­er will in­vest some US$400 mil­lion in ex­pand­ing broad­band us­ing fi­bre-op­tic tech­nol­o­gy, with the con­verged ser­vices lever­ag­ing the strengths of each net­work.

How­ev­er, CWC's main ri­val in the re­gion, mo­bile op­er­a­tor Dig­i­cel, has strong­ly op­posed the merg­er and ap­pealed to gov­ern­ments and reg­u­la­tors in Caribbean mar­kets to care­ful­ly analyse the trans­ac­tion which cre­ates a large play­er with con­sid­er­able mar­ket pow­er. Lo­cal­ly, the Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Work­ers' Union (CWU), bar­gain­ing agents for em­ploy­ees of Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tion Ser­vices of T&T (TSTT), had been cam­paign­ing against the merg­er, warn­ing of pos­si­ble job cuts

Oth­er groups in the re­gion al­so ex­pressed con­cern that the CWC/Colum­bus will lead to a sub­stan­tial less­en­ing of com­pe­ti­tion in at least six mar­kets–T&T, Ja­maica, Bar­ba­dos, St Lu­cia, St Vin­cent and the Grenadines and Grena­da–with a sig­nif­i­cant im­pact on con­sumers.