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Brussels announced on Tuesday that it had unconditionally authorized the proposed takeover of the legendary Hollywood studio MGM by the giant of technologies and online commerce Amazon, considering that the operation posed “no competition problem” in Europe.
“The proposed transaction would not raise competition concerns in any of the markets under review in the European Economic Area,” the European Commission said in a statement.
Amazon announced in May 2021 the acquisition of MGM. For 8.45 billion dollars (7.95 billion francs), Jeff Bezos’ group recovered a catalog of more than 4,000 films, including “James Bond” and “Rocky”, “The Silence of the Lambs”, “Basic Instinct ”… What to arm him against the emperor of Netflix streaming.
It is the second most expensive acquisition in Amazon’s history after that of American supermarkets Whole Foods for 13.7 billion dollars in 2017.
However, this takeover is contested in the United States. Worried about Amazon’s growing power over the subscription video streaming (SVOD) sector, unions are trying to prevent it, supported by political figures.
The Strategic Organizing Center, a federation which claims to represent nearly four million employees, notably called on the American competition authority (FTC) to oppose this takeover announced last May.
She estimates that Amazon will control around 56,000 titles after this operation, far ahead of Netflix, which would have just under 20,000 titles.
Created in April 1924 by Marcus Loew, a movie theater owner, MGM has become one of Hollywood’s biggest with a host of stars like Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Katherine Hepburn, and Elizabeth Taylor.
In all, it has won more than 180 Oscars and more than a hundred Emmy Awards, but has suffered many financial setbacks since the 1970s, passing through many hands before declaring bankruptcy in 2010 and then restructuring. .
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