Universal Music faces EU setback on EMI

Europe’s top antitrust watchdog has set out a sweeping list of objections to Universal Music’s £1.2bn bid for EMI’s record labels, putting pressure on the Vivendi subsidiary to offer large concessions to save the deal from being blocked.

According to people who have seen a “statement of objections” circulated by the European Commission, it argues that Universal, the world’s largest music company, already extracts materially higher prices from digital distributors than rivals, and that buying EMI would allow it to raise digital music prices. The Commission disagreed with Universal’s assessment of its market share, which excludes music it distributes for independent record labels, these people said. It was similarly unmoved by its arguments over the countervailing power of Apple and the pressure on legitimate music sales from piracy.