Politician calls for investigation into Liberty Media over monopoly fear

A Belgian MEP has asked the European Commission to investigate Liberty Media amid fears of it holding a monopoly in world motorsport as Formula 1 and MotoGP owner.

In April of this year, Liberty announced that it had purchased an 86% majority of Dorna Sports and MotoGP in a deal worth $4.2 billion.

Liberty still hopes to finalise the sale by the end of the year once the deal has gone through the EU’s antitrust board, with the American company confident it will do so.

Belgian MEP Pascal Arimont, who represents the Christian Social Party in the European Parliament, has written to the EU to investigate whether or not Liberty could create a monopoly once its acquisition of MotoGP is complete.

Liberty took over ownership of F1 from CVC Capital in 2017, while sister company Liberty Global owns the Formula E World Championship.

Formula 2 and Formula 3 also falls under Liberty ownership, while its acquisition of Dorna Sports means it will also control all of the properties the Spanish company oversees - with World Superbikes being the most notable.

Arimont, as reported by Het Belang van Limburg, says “there must be fair competition to protect consumers”, and questions whether this is the case with Liberty.

When CVC was given the green light to purchase F1, it was ordered by the EU’s competition board to sell its interests in MotoGP.

MotoGP was sold to Bridgepoint as a result of this.

However, in an investors call earlier this year, Liberty CEO Greg Maffei was keen to point out that CVC was only unable to own both F1 and MotoGP due to the limited timeframe it had to purchase the four-wheel series stopping it from going through the regulators.

“I remember speaking to the CVC management, they were under a tight timeframe to get a deal done to buy F1,” he said in April.

“So, they did not have the time to go and work through the regulatory process.

“And they were a PE [private equity] firm which had a big gain in one product and were moving to buy the other when they had a contract to execute on. We are in a very different position.”

Liberty has also faced scrutiny from the US Department of Justice in the form of an antitrust investigation after F1 refused entry onto the grid for Andretti Global.

Belgian MEP Arimont mentioned this as part of his claim, stating: “Commercial agreements make it very difficult for new teams to enter F1, possibly restricting competition in an illegal way.”

Arimont’s demands for another European Parliamentary investigation into Liberty Media will be responded to in a maximum of six weeks by the European Commissioner for Competition, Margrethe Vestager.

She will be succeeded by Spaniard Teres Ribera in December.