CenturyLink says U.S. regulator approves its $24 bln Level 3 deal
(Adds CenturyLink confirmation, FCC commissioner statement)
By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON, Oct 30 (Reuters) - Telecommunications provider CenturyLink Inc said on Monday that it had won anti-trust approval from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission for its purchase of Level 3 Communications Inc .
CenturyLink said last year it would buy Level 3 in a deal valued at about $24 billion. It is seeking to expand its reach in the business communications market and compete with rivals such as AT&T Inc and Verizon Communications Inc. CenturyLink said in a statement it had received all needed approvals and planned to close the deal on Wednesday.
The deal, three people briefed on the matter said, could effectively make it easier for other large transactions to win approval.
The U.S. Justice Department approved the tie-up this month with some conditions, including some divestitures. It was not immediately clear what conditions the FCC imposed, but it does include some divestitures.
The three people said the Republican majority decision could rewrite the standard by which the FCC reviews future mergers -- a shift that could make it easier for other large media and telecommunications mergers to win approval.
The FCC is currently considering whether to approve Sinclair Broadcast Group’s proposed $3.9 billion acquisition of Tribune Media Co that has drawn fire from across the political spectrum. Critics say the FCC has taken a number of regulatory actions to boost Sinclair.
"It has reached a point where all our media policy decisions seem to be custom built for this one company," FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, a Democrat, said of the Sinclair deal at a congressional hearing last week.
The FCC has traditionally employed a balancing test weighing potential public interest harms against any potential public interest benefits and applicants bear the burden of proof.
The three people briefed on the matter said the FCC approval of CenturyLink's Level 3 deal offered a more limited standard of review that would use "narrowly tailored transaction-specific conditions to remedy" harms.
FCC spokesman Neil Grace declined to comment.
FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn dissented and said the Republican majority "radically alters the commission’s long-standing merger review standards," her office said.
Commission Republicans have pushed to halt the practice of demanding conditions or concessions from companies seeking to merge that are not directly related to the transaction.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, who was in the minority during the Obama administration, last year criticized "how badly broken the current merger review process has become at the FCC — how rife it is with fact-free, dilatory, politically motivated, non-transparent decision-making." (Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and Susan Thomas)
