BRUSSELS
European Commission charged on Thursday six major Hollywood studios and U.K.’s leading broadcaster for anti-trust violations, accusing them of breaking the bloc’s competition rules.
The Commission said on Thursday that the movie studios, including Disney, NBC Universal, Paramount Pictures, Sony, Twentieth Century Fox and Warner Bros, and U.K.’s Sky TV agreed to put in place restrictions that prevent EU consumers, located outside U.K. and Ireland, from accessing pay-TV services via satellite or online.
"European consumers want to watch the pay-TV channels of their choice regardless of where they live or travel in the EU," EU Commissioner in charge of competition policy Margrethe Vestager said in a statement on Thursday.
"Our investigation shows that they cannot do this today, also because licensing agreements between the major film studios and Sky UK do not allow consumers in other EU countries to access Sky's UK and Irish pay-TV services, via satellite or online," Vestager said.
Last week, the European Commission launched two anti-trust investigations into electronic chipmaker Qualcomm and in April, the EU filed charges against Internet giant Google for allegedly violating the bloc’s antitrust laws and last month announced a probe into Amazon’s e-book business. The EU is also investigating the tax arrangements of Starbucks, Apple and Amazon.
