Despite strong opposition from The Booksellers Association and other third parties, the OFT approved Amazon.com Inc.’s proposed acquisition of The Book Depository International Limited on 26 October 2011. The Book Depository is an online book retailer offering free delivery to over 100 countries. Amazon’s share of the UK online book market is “strong” according to the OFT but there was “…limited pre-merger competition between Amazon and The Book Depository”. The merger gives Amazon an increase of only two per cent to four per cent of the UK online book market and it continues to face rivalry from other retailers including other online retailers, bricks and mortar retailers and even major supermarkets. Following investigation, the OFT found that The Book Depository had shown most growth and expansion in overseas markets. The deal in fact was notified and cleared in a number of other jurisdictions including Ireland, where the competition authority reported that it received no third party comments, and Australia, where the competition authorities found that the parties faced low barriers to entry and competition from online and off-line retailers.
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Battle for the books
- Nabarro LLP
- Cyrus Mehta, Brian Sher and Rachel Bickler
- United Kingdom
- November 10 2011
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