– Calls for model of duplicate assets divestiture to be considered

Tuesday 21st April 2015 – Kingston, Jamaica: Digicel today confirmed its strong support for the announcement by the National Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of St. Lucia (‘St. Lucia NTRC’) of a public consultation process in relation to the merger between Cable and Wireless Communications (‘LIME’) and FLOW / Columbus Communications Inc. (‘FLOW’). The St. Lucia NTRC has invited members of the public / all interested parties to make submissions on the merger to the NTRC by Thursday 30th April 2015.

Digicel has previously publicly called upon the Regulatory Authorities in St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Grenada to be mindful of the conditions imposed by the Regulatory Authorities in Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago; particularly in relation to the divestiture of duplicate fibre and related infrastructure assets created by the merger of LIME and FLOW’s networks. In its decision published on 27th March, the Barbados Fair Trading Commission (‘the FTC’) confirmed the view that the merger would create ‘… anti-competitive effects … in the Fixed-voice (landline) telephony and Fixed Data (broadband internet)….’ markets. Accordingly, the FTC imposed 14 separate significant conditions on its merger approval compelling LIME to promptly divest of significant overlap fibre assets in Barbados to a third party or parties to be approved by the FTC. These compulsory divestments include fibre assets relating to 27,000+ homes passed by the Karib Cable network and an additional 28,000+ homes outside of the Karib Cable network; but within the combined LIME / FLOW networks. The FTC also made its approval conditional on other specific conditions, including guaranteed consumer choice on service contracts, provision of pole and duct access to third party providers and retail price tariffing in the product markets affected by the strongly anti-competitive effects of the merger.

Digicel has submitted to ECTEL and to the NTRC’s in the affected countries that the merger of LIME and FLOW is, at the very least, every bit as serious a challenge to competition in key telecoms markets in St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Grenada as it is in Barbados and that the anti-competitive effects of the merger are perhaps even more obvious in the OECS. Accordingly, Digicel submits that these OECS regulatory authorities must also very seriously consider the remedies of overlap assets divestiture in the OECS in order to address these obvious anti-competitive effects of the merger.

Digicel Group CEO, Colm Delves, commented; “We very much welcome this intervention by the St. Lucia NTRC and its commitment to a rigorous regulatory examination of the proposed merger. This matter needs to be very carefully examined and monitored by the regulatory authorities in the OECS countries.”

ABOUT DIGICEL
Digicel Group Limited is a leading global telecommunications provider with operations in 33 markets in the Caribbean, Central America and Asia Pacific. After 14 years of operation, total investment to date stands at over US$5 billion worldwide. The company is renowned for delivering best value, best service and best network.

Digicel runs a host of community-based initiatives across its markets and has set up Digicel Foundations in Jamaica, Haiti, Papua New Guinea and Trinidad and Tobago which focus on educational, cultural and social development programmes.

Digicel is the lead sponsor of Caribbean, Central American and Pacific sports teams and individuals including the world’s fastest man, Usain Bolt and Special Olympics teams throughout these regions. Digicel also sponsors the West Indies cricket team.

Visit www.digicelgroup.com for more information.