The State Administration of market supervision of China has prohibited the merger of HuYa and DouYu.
On January 4, 2021, the State Administration of market supervision of the people's Republic of China conducted an anti-monopoly examination on the concentration of business operators in accordance with the law in the merger case of tiger tooth company and Betta International Holding Co., Ltd. declared by Tencent Holding Co., Ltd.
According to the anti monopoly law, the State Administration of market supervision comprehensively analyzes and evaluates the market share of the operators participating in the concentration in the relevant market and their control over the market, the degree of market concentration, the impact of concentration on market entry and technological progress, the impact of concentration on consumers and other relevant operators, as well as the effectiveness of the additional restrictive commitment scheme proposed by Tencent. During the review process, the State Administration of market supervision extensively solicited opinions from relevant government departments, industry associations, experts and scholars, competitors in the same industry and downstream customers, and listened to Tencent's opinions for many times.
The review shows that the relevant market of this case is the online game operation service market and the live game market in China. Tencent's market share in the upstream online game operation service exceeds 40%, ranking first; Tiger teeth and fighting fish have more than 40% and 30% of the downstream live game market shares respectively, ranking first and second, with a total of more than 70%. At present, Tencent has separate control over tiger tooth and joint control over Betta. For example, the merger of tiger tooth and Betta will make Tencent control the merged entity separately, further strengthen Tencent's dominant position in the live game market, and enable Tencent to have the ability and motivation to implement closed-loop management and two-way vertical blockade in the upstream and downstream markets, which has or may have the effect of excluding and limiting competition, which is not conducive to fair competition in the market and may damage the interests of consumers, It is not conducive to the healthy and sustainable development of online games and live game market. After evaluation, Tencent's proposal of additional restrictive conditions commitment can not effectively solve the above competition concerns.
According to Article 28 of the anti monopoly law and Article 35 of the Interim Provisions on the examination of business concentration, the State Administration of market supervision has decided to prohibit such business concentration according to law.
Tencent responded that the company will seriously abide by the review decision, actively cooperate with regulatory requirements, operate in accordance with the law and fulfill its social responsibilities.
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