The Italian antitrust authority, l’Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato, has extended its investigation into the sports-rights acquisitions of Rupert Murdoch’s pay-television platform Sky Italia by a further six months, until December 31 2012.
The authority is trying to establish whether Sky’s acquisitions policy represents an abuse of a dominant position in the Italian pay-television market. It said that the investigation was being extended due to its “complexity.”
The investigation was opened in November 2010 in response to a complaint by commercial broadcaster Mediaset about Sky’s acquisition of the exclusive pay-television rights to the Fifa World Cups of 2010 and 2014. In July 2011, the investigation was expanded to take in Sky’s acquisition of the exclusive pay-television rights to the Uefa Champions League from 2012-13 to 2014-15.