The Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) said it had asked the European Union Commission, which has default authority over the matter automatically due the size of the companies' combined sales, to remand it to the ACM.

The Commission declined a similar request in 2014 to review the merger that created Ziggo.

Ziggo and Vodafone in February announced plans to merge their Dutch operations in order to better compete with former incumbent KPN (>> KONINKLIJKE KPN).

(Reporting by Toby Sterling; editing by Jason Neely)

Stocks treated in this article : KONINKLIJKE KPN, Liberty Global PLC, Vodafone Group plc