On 1 March 2010, the European Commission cleared the proposed joint venture between Orange UK (a subsidiary of France Telecom) and T-mobile UK (a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom) after the parties agreed to:

  • divest one quarter of their rights over the 1800 MHz spectrum band used by mobile phone companies; and
  • amend an existing network sharing agreement with a competitor, Hutchinson 3G UK.

On the same day, the Office of Fair Trading announced that it was withdrawing its request to review the UK aspects of the joint venture, on the basis that it was satisfied that the commitments offered by the parties would resolve competition issues on the UK mobile telecommunications market. The deal was cleared swiftly as a result of the co-ordinated approach.