European Commission accuses KKR of misleading €22bn TIM NetCo merger review

The European Commission has told KKR it preliminarily believes the firm gave incorrect or misleading information during the regulator's 2024 review of its €22bn ($24.7bn) acquisition of Telecom Italia's fixed-line network.

The Commission issued a Statement of Objections, its formal statement of preliminary findings, after opening an investigation into complaints from third-party operators. Data Center Dynamics reported on 21 October that the findings were released earlier that week. The Commission cleared the NetCo deal in 2024; the objection concerns the information it relied on when doing so.

The dispute turns on the long-term wholesale access contracts FiberCop sells to other Italian operators, which use them to reach retail broadband customers. FiberCop was set up in 2021 by TIM, KKR and Fastweb to run TIM's last-mile fiber, and it was known as NetCo before a KKR-led consortium bought it from Telecom Italia. Those operators said that after the deal FiberCop unilaterally increased the prices they paid under the existing agreements.

The Statement of Objections sets out the Commission's preliminary view that KKR “at least negligently, submitted incorrect and/or misleading information on the terms of its existing long-term agreements for wholesale access”, including the representation that those terms would continue to apply because they could only be changed by mutual agreement with the third-party operators.

The Commission says its evidence suggests KKR may have raised prices for existing wholesale broadband customers after the merger, in some cases significantly. “Effective merger control depends on companies providing the Commission with correct information,” said Teresa Ribera, the Commission's executive vice president for clean, just and competitive transition. She said the Commission relied on that information when it approved the acquisition in 2024, and that KKR now has the opportunity to respond.

KKR said it disagrees with the Commission's view. “We stand by the accuracy of the information provided during the Commission's 2024 review of the NetCo acquisition,” a spokesperson said, according to Data Center Dynamics. The findings are preliminary.