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Ofcom’s findings relating to the acquisition by Reach plc of certain publishing assets of Northern & Shell, including the Daily Express and Daily Star newspapers, were published yesterday.

Reach plc is the new company name for the newspaper group Trinity Mirror.

Public interest report

On 10 April 2018, Trinity Mirror submitted a merger notice to the Competition and Markets Authority in respect of its acquisition on 1 March 2018.

On 1 May 2018, the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport issued a Public Interest Intervention Notice which asked Ofcom to look at the effect of the transaction on the following public interest considerations:

• the need for a sufficient plurality of views in newspapers in each market for newspapers in the United Kingdom or a part of the United Kingdom; and
• the need for free expression of opinion in newspapers.

We provided our public interest report on 31 May 2018 to the Secretary of State, who has today published Ofcom’s report.

Our report finds that the transaction does not raises public interest concerns in relation to plurality, nor in relation to free expression of opinion in newspapers.

Secretary of State announcement

The Secretary of State today said that he has accepted Ofcom’s conclusions, and has decided not to refer the merger for a phase 2 investigation.