合并时代的竞争：各国电信、多媒体法之比较
Competition in Merger Era: Comparison of Telecommunication and Multimedia Law in Different Countries
张悦欣
【摘要】Players in the network distribution industry (telephone companies, cable and satellite operators) and in the equipment industry (telecommunications equipment, computer hardware and software companies) are becoming increasingly involved in mergers, joint ventures and strategic alliances. They are also seeking to join forces by taking up shares in each other’s business or by jointly acquiring intellectual property rights (such as software copyright and patents) and licenses. (A good example is of course the AOL/TIME Warner alliance). The author compares and analyzes the individual cases, provisions of telecommunication and multimedia laws in United States, United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, the protection of reasonable and fair competition as well as the order of market.
【关键词】Competition; Monopoly; Merger; FCC；OFCOM
【全文】
I. INTRODUCTION
Since 10 January 2000, the America Online (AOL) and Time Warner had announced that AOL bought Time Warner to form a mega Internet, cable, publishing, moviemaking, television, music ‘empire’ (worth $350 billion USD ), the issue of the merger of the network distribution industry with the equipment industry was raised.
The merger of AOL with Time Warner was approved by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on 14 December 2000 at $111 billion (USD), which is the largest merger in United States (US) history . There were some other mergers, for instance, the merger of the Walt Disney Company with Capital Cities/ABC at $19 billion (USD) on 31 July 1995, the merger of the Westinghouse with CBS at $5.4 billion (USD) on 1 August 1995, and the merger of CBS with Viacom at $91 billion (USD) before the merger of AOL Time Warner.
Is the merger a ‘good’ thing? How the competition law deals with it? This paper will issue about the AOL Time Warner merger and the impact of the carrier and organizational convergence in different countries to competition law (in US, United Kingdom (UK), Australia (Aus) and New Zealand (NZ)).
