The Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMCU) found grounds for prohibiting the DVL Telecom company, which is part of the French NJJ group, from taking control over the Lifecell group, the press service of AMCU informed.

The regulator believes that it is necessary to check the relationship between the control of Lifecell and the parent company Turkcell with the person to whom the special sanctions of the National Security Council have been applied.

AMCU also noted that during the review of applications for the acquisition of control by DVL Telecom over the companies Lifecell and Ukrtower they found grounds for banning the specified concentrations. Taking this into account, AMCU cannot grant a separate permit for the purchase of the Global Bilgi company due to the fact that it constitutes a single transaction with Lifecell and Ukrtower.

Therefore, on March 7, AMCU again began consideration of concentration cases in the form of acquisition by DVL Telecom of control over Lifecell, Global Bilgi and Ukrtower. They also started the case of concerted actions directly related to the implementation of these concentrations.

Earlier, French billionaire Xavier Niel said that his investment company NJJ Capital agreed to pay $500 million for the Ukrainian unit of Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri AS. The deal will give NJJ Capital control of Lifecell, a call center network and cell tower operator.