Indies Written Off Again

Newly appointed IMPALA secretary general Helen Smith isn’t so much fed up with the U.K. papers predicting that the European Commission will pass the Sony-BMG merger without condition as the fact they keep repeating it.

The latest story came in The Times, echoing the views of its sister paper Financial Times, which once again predicted that the EC won’t impose any constraints on the merger.

"It would be truly incredible if they are right," Smith told Pollstar.

She said her organisation has already written to EC President José Manuel Barroso asking if the papers are running the stories on the basis of leaked information, and he’s asking the relevant departments for an explanation.

Making the wrong call when the Sony-BMG merger came to Brussels the first time around hasn’t deterred the U.K. business pages from making the same call again.

The EC did allow the merger the first time, but the European Court annulled the decision and told the monopolies commissioners to take another closer look at the situation.

Smith said she expects the EC will have found issues that need to be resolved and is unlikely to pass the merger until they’ve been remedied.

The EC has until October 10 to give its decision although it’s widely expected to come a few days earlier.