BRUSSELS—Europe's antitrust regulator has filed formal charges
against six major U.S. film studios and U.K. pay-TV broadcaster Sky
UK Ltd., warning that contracts agreed on by the companies that
restrict access to Sky's services outside Britain may violate EU
laws.
The six studios are Disney, NBCUniversal, Paramount Pictures,
Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc., Twentieth Century Fox and Warner
Bros. Entertainment.
The charges come amid a broader push by the EU to smash down
barriers to a single market for digital services in the region.
Regulators are focusing in particular on eliminating so-called
geo-blocking, where firms block access to films or other online
content outside a particular licensed territory.
The European Commission, the bloc's top antitrust authority,
said Thursday that contracts agreed between Sky and the six studios
may have prevented Sky from offering its U.K. and Irish pay-TV
services to EU consumers elsewhere.
If that preliminary view is confirmed, "the clauses would
constitute a serious violation of EU rules that prohibit
anticompetitive agreements," the EU said.
21st Century Fox Inc., which owns the Twentieth Century Fox film
studio, was until last year part of the same company as Wall Street
Journal owner News Corp. Sky is 39%-owned by 21st Century Fox.
"European consumers want to watch the pay-TV channels of their
choice regardless of where they live or travel in the EU," the EU's
antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager said. "Our investigation shows
that they cannot do this today."
The companies involved now have a chance to respond to the EU's
concerns before Brussels reaches a final decision, which can then
be appealed to the EU's top courts in Luxembourg.
The EU has separately raised concerns around licensing
agreements between the film studios and other major European
broadcasters, including Canal Plus of France, Sky Italia of Italy,
Sky Deutschland of Germany and DTS of Spain. It "continues to
examine cross-border access to pay-TV services in these" countries,
according to the statement.
Write to Tom Fairless at tom.fairless@wsj.com
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