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EU may examime AOL, Time Warner merger

FRANKFURT: The European Commission may examine the planned merger of America Online Inc. and Time Warner Inc. for anti-trust reasons, EU Competition Commissioner Mario Monti told the Welt am Sonntag newspaper.

"We must first make sure the European Commission has juristiction for the examination of this merger. For the time being I assume so because AOL and Time Warner certainly achieve significant sales in Europe," Monti told the paper.

The record merger might need to be inspected even though the two companies operated in different branches, Monti said.

"The actual competition question could be how this specific connection, the vertical integration of a gatekeeper with one of the strongest providers of media content, will be judged," he said, adding that the Commission would carefully examine mergers involving Internet companies in general.-Reuters