Mergers: Commission clears creation of joint venture by Sumitomo and Vodafone

The European Commission has approved, under the EU Merger Regulation, the creation of a joint venture by Sumitomo Corporation (‘Sumitomo’) of Japan and Vodafone Group Plc (‘Vodafone’) of the UK.

The joint venture, DABCO Limited, will develop and commercialise ‘Economy of Things’ products and services to enable connected devices, vehicles and machines to communicate, transact and trade autonomously with one another. Sumitomo is a global trading and investment company. Vodafone is a telecommunications group active in Europe and Africa.

The Commission concluded that the proposed acquisition would raise no competition concerns, given that the joint venture has negligible actual and foreseen in the European Economic Area. The transaction was examined under the simplified merger review procedure.

More information is available on the Commission’s competition website, in the public case register under the case number M.11123.