UK Competition Regulator Puts Brake on Amazon’s Deliveroo Investment
Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Facebook should be prohibited from purchasing their competitors everywhere, not just the UK. They need to be stopped from buying start ups and scuttling innovation that isn’t theirs.
On Friday Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it served an initial enforcement order (IEO) on the two companies on June 24, signaling possible concerns about the transaction.
The regulator, which referred to Amazon’s investment as “a minority shareholding” said it had reasonable grounds for suspecting that Amazon and Deliveroo “have ceased to be distinct” or were putting in place or considering arrangements which would result in them “ceasing to be distinct”.
The order requires Amazon and Deliveroo to operate independently for now, meaning they cannot press ahead with the tie-up. It gives the regulator time to decide if it will launch a formal “Phase 1” competition probe.
The Deliveroo investment is Amazon’s latest attempt to enter the takeaway delivery market, worth around $100 billion globally, after it shut down its own service, Amazon Restaurants, first in the UK and then last month in the United States.
More: UK competition regulator puts brake on Amazon’s Deliveroo investment - Reuters