Antitrust to weigh indirect market share in Yandex–Uber taxi merger

MOSCOW, Jul 19 (PRIME) -- Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service will take into account an indirect share on the local market of online taxi hailing services Yandex.Taxi and Uber while analyzing their merger and amend the law correspondingly, the watchdog’s Deputy Director Andrei Tsarikovsky told reporters on Wednesday.

The service has not received the request from Yandex.Taxi and Uber yet, Tsarikovsky said. “These are the biggest taxi aggregators in Russia, which engage most of the players. If they don’t influence the market directly, they do so indirectly, and it should be understood. I mean the notion of indirect market control,” he said.

“Perhaps, we’ll prepare amendments to the law, otherwise we’ll stay far behind. The world is getting rid of the (direct control) notion, and the whole world practice and activities of antitrust authorities are passing through this ‘influence’.”

The official sees no signs so far of the deal being subject to approval by a government commission for foreign investment.

On July 13, Yandex and Uber said they had agreed to merge their taxi businesses in Russia and a number of CIS countries into a company, called NewCo, where Yandex will own 59.3%, Uber 36.6%, and 4.1% will be held by employees of the company.

Uber will invest U.S. $225 million, and Yandex will contribute $100 million into NewCo, valuing it at $3.725 billion on a post-money basis.

The antitrust service’s Director Igor Artemyev said earlier that the watchdog will decide during 90 days on the merger.

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