Austria's Federal Competition Authority (BWB) has referred the proposed purchase of Orange Austria's discount subsidiary Yesss! by A1 to the Cartel Office for further examination. The BWB said that the companies had failed to alleviate its concerns about the deal, with the authority expressing grave concerns about the impact on the Austrian mobile market and consumers. The BWB said that it regretted that the companies were unwilling to make concessions after four months of talks. The next phase of the investigation will take at least five months. The merger will affect several markets and will boost Telekom Austria's share of the mobile voice telephony market to more than 39 percent; and its share of the broadband fixed network plus mobile market (consumers) to over 53 percent. The disappearance of the aggressive pricing policy of Yesss! will leave A1's discount brand Bob without any competition. The BWB is concerned that this could result in higher prices.
