Switzerland's competition regulator announced plans for an in-depth investigation of the planned merger of the two local search engines Local.ch and Search.ch. Swisscom owns Local.ch and plans to merge the site in a joint venture with Search.ch, owned by Tamedia. Publigroupe, recently acquired by Swisscom, also has a stake in Search.ch. Under the proposed joint venture, Swisscom would have a 69 percent stake in the merged company and Tamedia 31 percent. The companies said the cooperation will help them better compete against international players such as Google.
Following a preliminary investigation, the competition regulator Weko said the deal could lead to a dominant player in the market for directory services. It will complete the additional investigation within four months.
