EU’s High Court Dismisses Sony BMG Annulment

The European Union High Court decided that a lower court ruling that annulled the European Commission’s approval of a merger between the Sony Music and BMG record labels was invalid. While this doesn’t have severe reprecussions for either company, it was an important victory for the Commission as the lower court decision had considerably narrowed the EU executive’s margin for error in approving or rejecting mergers.

“The Court of Justice sets aside the judgment of the Court of First Instance relating to the Sony BMG joint venture,” the high court said in a statement.

“Since the Court of First Instance examined only two of the five pleas relied on by Impala, the Court of Justice considers that it is not in a position to give a ruling itself on the dispute. It is accordingly referring the case back to the Court of First Instance,” the court said in a statement.

In July 2006, the lower Court of First Instance threw out the Commission decision at the request of Impala, an independent group of music producers. Impala said on Thursday that the lower court remained free to conclude that the commission had got it wrong, in which case the merger approval decision could be annulled all over again.

Read the full story at Reuters.