EU: Equinix must dump colos in Amsterdam, London and Frankfurt

Equinix will be forced to offload data centres in Amsterdam, London and Frankfurt as the price of EU approval of its takeover of Telecity.

The European Commission has given a conditional green light to the £2.3bn deal, which Equinix first announced bid back in May, aiming to add 39 European data centres to its 100-strong US fleet.

In a recent statement, Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, declared: “With the ever-growing economic importance of ‘cloud’ services, it is crucial to maintain competition between data centres. The Commission is satisfied that the commitments offered by Equinix will ensure that companies continue to have a choice for hosting their data at competitive prices.”

The commission’s investigation found that “Equinix and Telecity are currently important players for colocation services in these three metropolitan areas where they frequently compete against each other for customer contracts”. (Of course, they could have just read The Register, but where’s the fun in that?)

Consequently, to bypass the prospect of higher colo prices in the key markets, Equinix will offload two Amsterdam centres, five in London and one in Frankfurt.

Full content: Business Cloud News

Want more news? Subscribe to CPI’s free daily newsletter for more headlines and updates on antitrust developments around the world.