Announced on April 1, the acquisition of Dorna by Liberty Media was to be completed at the end of this year 2024. According to the media specializing in finance Bloomberg, an in-depth investigation should be carried out by December 19 by the European Commission, which could delay the end of the acquisition, or even put it in danger, depending on the conclusions of the investigation. Liberty Media was confident about the acquisition, but on December 1, the Spaniard Teresa Ribera became Competition Commissioner, appointed by Ursula von der Leyen, the current President of the European Commission.
Ribera and his team would therefore like to take a closer look at the acquisition, which would allow Liberty Media to own the two most important motorsport competitions on the planet, after its takeover of Formula 1 in 2017. Still according to Bloomberg, concerns would mainly relate to the market for television and streaming rights, Liberty Media's monopoly on the two competitions could reduce competition in this market. In France (Canal+) and Belgium (RTBF) for example, the same broadcasters hold the broadcasting rights for the two championships, and it would be possible to imagine that Liberty Media potentially wishes to systematize this scheme.
A Liberty Media spokesperson said the company continues to “work constructively” with EU regulators as part of the review and that he hoped they “understand the dynamic nature of the market”. In-depth investigations generally add three months to various acquisitions, but this can last even longer if the EU considers it needs to investigate one or more subjects in more detail. At the end of the investigation, the commission can decide to accept the sale unconditionally, to ask to remedy certain shortcomings or simply to prohibit the acquisition outright.
For Liberty Media, this could turn into the same scenario as that which had brought into question CVC, the company from which Liberty Media bought Formula 1. At the end of 2005, the Competition Commission asked it to resell its shares in MotoGP in order to proceed with the acquisition of Formula 1, which was done at the beginning of 2006. It remains to be seen whether or not this precedent will guide the results of the investigation carried out at the end of the year.
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