OTTAWA – Day two of the Competition Tribunal hearing on the Competition Bureau’s application to block the merger of Rogers Communications and Shaw Communications saw witnesses answer questions drawing attention to the fact that while the Commissioner of Competition is opposing the whole merger in its original form, this past June the two companies announced a deal was made to sell Freedom Mobile to Quebecor subsidiary Videotron in an attempt to assuage concerns related to wireless competition.
Stephanie Assad, competition law officer at the Competition Bureau, told the three-person tribunal panel she helped draft a request for information in September 2021, which the bureau received 315 responses to (292 of which were about wireless and 239 of which were critical of the deal), all before the proposed sale of Freedom was finalize.
The witness confirmed to her knowledge a similar RFI was not issued after the proposed sale was announced and confirmed she could not know if the responses would be different if they had been submitted after the Freedom sale was announced.
Competition Bureau employee Denis Albert who was involved in triaging submissions from the public on the proposed merger said the bureau received over 7,000 comments starting in March 2021, which is more than other public responses the bureau has previously seen. (This includes the Bell/MTS transaction.)
A lot of those comments Albert said were in opposition of the merger, however he indicated it is unclear how many submissions were made after the deal with Videotron for the sale of Freedom Mobile was announced.
Another competition law officer, with the Competition Bureau, Mathew McCarthy confirmed for the tribunal panel that 3500 MHz spectrum is critical to 5G, and that Shaw/Freedom did not acquire any 3500 MHz spectrum during last year’s auction, but Videotron did. The witness also confirmed Videotron holds 3500 MHz licences that cover the entire geographic footprint of Freedom’s wireless network.
The hearing continues tomorrow morning at 9:30 a.m. ET. For instructions on how to listen in, please click here.
