CELEX: 32020M9946
Language: en
Date: 2020-10-20 00:00:00
Title: Commission Decision of 20/10/2020 declaring a concentration to be compatible with the common market (Case No COMP/M.9946 - MSI / ALTICE / LIGHTPATH) according to Council Regulation (EC) No 139/2004 (Only the English text is authentic)

EUROPEAN COMMISSION
                                                                Brussels, 20.10.2020
                                                                C(2020) 7377 final
                                                                                 PUBLIC VERSION
                                                                To the notifying parties
Subject:        Case M.9946 – MSI / ALTICE / LIGHTPATH
                Commission decision pursuant to Article 6(1)(b) of Council Regulation
                                       1
                (EC) No 139/2004 and Article 57 of the Agreement on the European
                                    2
                Economic Area
Dear Sir or Madam,
1.      On 22 September 2020, the European Commission received notification of a proposed
        concentration pursuant to Article 4 of the Merger Regulation by which Morgan
        Stanley Infrastructure Inc. (“MSI”, United States of America) and Altice USA, Inc.
        (“Altice”, United States of America), acquire within the meaning of Article 3(1)(b)
        and 3(4) of the Merger Regulation joint control over the whole of Lightpath Holdings,
        LLC (“Lightpath”, United States of America), ultimately controlled by Altice, by way
        of purchase of shares.3
2.      The business activities of the undertakings concerned are:
             MSI: MSI is an indirectly wholly-owned subsidiary of Morgan Stanley. Morgan
              Standley offers financial services firm providing a wide range of investment
              banking, securities, wealth management and investment management services.
             Altice: Altice provides broadband, video, mobile, proprietary content and
              advertising services as well as hyper-local, national, international and business
              news to more than 4.9 million residential and business customers across 21 states
              in the USA.
             Lightpath: Lightpath provides advanced fiber, Ethernet, data transport, IP-based
              virtual private networks, Internet access, Managed Services, telephony services,
              including session-initiated protocol trunking, and VoIP services to the business
              market in the New York metropolitan area in the USA.
1       OJ L 24, 29.1.2004, p. 1 (the ‘Merger Regulation’). With effect from 1 December 2009, the Treaty on
        the Functioning of the European Union (‘TFEU’) has introduced certain changes, such as the
        replacement of ‘Community’ by ‘Union’ and ‘common market’ by ‘internal market’. The terminology
        of the TFEU will be used throughout this decision.
2       OJ L 1, 3.1.1994, p. 3 (the ‘EEA Agreement’).
3       Publication in the Official Journal of the European Union No C 321, 29.9.2020, p. 44.
Commission européenne, DG COMP MERGER REGISTRY, 1049 Bruxelles, BELGIQUE
Europese Commissie, DG COMP MERGER REGISTRY, 1049 Brussel, BELGIË
Tel: +32 229-91111. Fax: +32 229-64301. E-mail: COMP-MERGER-REGISTRY@ec.europa.eu.
 ---pagebreak--- 3. After examination of the notification, the European Commission has concluded that
   the notified operation falls within the scope of the Merger Regulation and of
   paragraph 5(a) of the Commission Notice on a simplified procedure for treatment of
   certain concentrations under Council Regulation (EC) No 139/2004.4
4. For the reasons set out in the Notice on a simplified procedure, the European
   Commission has decided not to oppose the notified operation and to declare it
   compatible with the internal market and with the EEA Agreement. This decision is
   adopted in application of Article 6(1)(b) of the Merger Regulation and Article 57 of
   the EEA Agreement.
                                                  For the Commission
                                                  (Signed)
                                                  Olivier GUERSENT
                                                  Director-General
4  OJ C 366, 14.12.2013, p. 5.
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