International law firm CMS has advised Comcast on specialist media, telecommunications and gambling regulation aspects of its bid for Sky. Comcast, the US-based media and technology company, was the highest bidder for UK-based entertainment and communications company Sky in an auction managed by the UK’s Takeover Panel.
The firm has a longstanding relationship with Comcast and its subsidiary NBCUniversal, advising on channel distribution and TV production matters.
The CMS team’s advice covered English, Italian, German, Austrian, Spanish, Ukrainian, Belgian and Albanian aspects ranging from change of ownership requirements for broadcast licences and video on demand authorisations as well as competition law filings and media concentration issues.
Head of Broadcasting Selina Potter and co-head of Media, Victoria Gaskell led the CMS team in London with support from Alasdair Lamb (Gambling) and Mark Fisher (Telecommunications). Italo de Feo (CMS Italy), Mirko Daidone (CMS Albania), Pietro Fringuelli (CMS Germany), Egon Engin-Deniz (CMS Austria), Jorge Sanchez Vicente (CMS Spain), Alexis Laes (CMS Belgium) and Olga Belyakova (CMS Ukraine) also advised on key facets of the deal.
Selina Potter said: "We were really pleased to work with Comcast on this. It’s testament to our media industry knowledge and international capability that we were brought in to advise on the technical media and gambling law requirements of the deal that extended across several European markets”.
Davies Polk & Wardwell and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer advised on other aspects of the transaction.
