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The Taiwan Fair Trade Commission (TFTC) concluded at its Commissioners Meeting on 22 December 2010 that it has no objection toward the combination with respect to the transfer of public wireless network infrastructure assets by Motorola, Inc. ("Motorola") to Nokia Siemens Networks B.V. ("NSN").
According to the TFTC, Motorola, through its wholly owned subsidiary in Taiwan, Motorola Electronics Taiwan, Ltd. ("Motorola Taiwan"), intends to sell and transfer the businesses and assets related to public wireless network infrastructure to Nokia Siemens Networks Taiwan Co., Ltd. ("NSNT"), a wholly owned subsidiary of NSN in Taiwan. Such a transfer is a combination under the Fair Trade Act ("FTA"). In addition, NSNT holds a market share reaching 1/4 in the local mobile communications network equipment/solution market, which has triggered the notification threshold and hence, a pre-combination notification must be filed with the TFTC.
According to the TFTC, the relevant businesses to be sold and transferred by Motorola Taiwan concern the deployment of the mobile communications network and provision of relevant solutions for mobile communications operators (including 2G, 3G, and WiMAX operators), which provide products and/or services within the mobile communications network equipment/solution market. This combination is a horizontal combination. The participating enterprises in this combination face strong bargaining power from competitors as well as customers. NSNT's post-combination market share will be slightly increased. There are many competitors in the relevant market; the market concentration achieved by the combination is quite limited; as for barriers to market entry, there are no minimum capital requirement, special legal restrictions, or other barriers with respect to patent rights, intellectual property rights, or raw materials. The impact on the upstream or downstream market is relatively small. Based on the above, there should be no obvious anti-competition concern.
To sum up, the impact of this combination on the mobile communications network equipment/solution market should be minimal. The overall economic advantage brought about by the combination should be greater than its anti-competition disadvantage. This combination is thus cleared pursuant to Article 12 of the FTA. As the mobile communications industry is one of the major industries in Taiwan, this combination shall have considerable impact on the local digital convergence industry. Therefore, the parties to the combination, when performing their rights and obligations under the agreements with local suppliers and customers, should comply with the FTA, cannot refuse to trade with or discriminate against any suppliers or customers.
