U.K. Subjects Fox to Wider Probe Over Sky Takeover

U.K. Subjects Fox to Wider Probe Over Sky Takeover

Rupert Murdoch faces months of fresh scrutiny over how he runs his media empire as U.K. authorities embark on a wider probe of 21st Century Fox’s 11.7 billion-pound pursuit of pay-TV company Sky, according to Bloomberg.

Culture Secretary Karen Bradley said she has made a final decision to ask the nation’s competition regulator to investigate Fox’s commitment to broadcasting standards and whether its takeover of London-based Sky would give the Murdoch family too much sway in the country’s media.

The extra review adds more delay and costs to Fox’s purchase of the 61 percent of Sky it doesn’t already own, Murdoch’s second attempt at the broadcaster he founded after a phone-hacking scandal at his newspapers derailed a 2010 bid. While the investigation opens the deal to more uncertainty, analysts see it as a necessary step toward probable approval.

In separate statements, Fox and Sky said they would engage constructively with the CMA. Fox said it hoped Bradley would respect the findings of the independent authority and reiterated its view that the deal’s close would be pushed to as late as June 30, 2018, as a result of the CMA review, which can last six months. That follows delays for the transaction, which was announced in December 2016, as a result of a snap U.K. election in June and additional review Bradley requested from regulator Ofcom.