The proposed stock and cash media and entertainment mega-merger between Disney’s India business and Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance’s media unit Viacom18 is now in its final stages, with antitrust due diligence reportedly underway.
The leaders of both media giants signed a binding agreement in Febru-ary, which will give Ambani’s company a controlling interest in the combined entity. The Economic Times report said that the acquisition is likely to take place with Reliance setting up a new subsidi-ary, which will absorb Disney’s Star India through a share swap deal. The deal also includes Reliance’s over-the-top (OTT) platform JioCinema, and Disney’s loss-making OTT service Hotstar.
Please click here or refer to the below document to read the full article by Vaibhav Choukse, published in Asian Legal Business.
Vaibhav is heading the Firm’s Competition Law Practice and has been practicing competition law since its inception in India. He focuses on complex enforcement/ litigation and merger control cases and represents and advises clients on a broad range of competition law issues spanning across several sectors.