Bulgaria's Regulator Blocks CEZ and Nova TV Deals

In separate decisions published on Thursday, Bulgaria's anti-monopoly body, the Commission on Protection of Competition, CPC, has prohibited the signing of two of the largest recent deals in the country.

One was the sale of the Bulgarian assets of the Czech energy giant CEZ to a Bulgarian family-owned company, Inercom.

The other was the sale of one of Bulgaria's two largest media conglomerates, Nova Broadcasting Group, owner of Nova TV, to PPF Bidco of Czech businessman Petr Kellner.

In both cases, the CPC said the deals might result in an unhealthy "concentration" of ownership that could harm their respective markets  - energy, media and advertising - and their customers.

Bulgarian competition law says undue concentration of ownership can lead to prohibition of deals if the results are likely to lead to "the creation or strengthening of a dominant position, as a result of which effective competition in the relevant market would be significantly impeded".

The CPC decision about Nova Broadcasting says the body "noted that the acquired company has leading positions in the media services market, which raises the question of the effect of the deal on the said market".

According to the CPC, the number of media outlets owned both by Kellner's conglomerate and Nova Broadcasting Group would give them a competitive advantage on the media services market - which might further encourage the new conglomerate to increase prices, change the terms of existing contracts or restrict access to the market by new players.

Nova TV controls around 30 to 40 per cent of the TV market in Bulgaria, according to the conclusions of the anti-monopoly organ.

"Taking into account the above-mentioned details ... there are reasons to believe that...