BRUSSELS , July 23 (UPI) -- Six major U.S. film studios and the British satellite broadcaster Sky TV were named Thursday in an antitrust probe by the European Union.
It alleges Sky TV, with Disney, NBCUniversal, Paramount Pictures, Sony, Twentieth Century Fox and Warner Bros., allegedly restricted pay TV services on mainland Europe which are available in the United Kingdom and Ireland, a violation of EU rules prohibiting anti-competitive agreements. An investigation of the seven companies, begun in 2014, suggested examples of "geo-blocking" of Sky TV's pay-television services to customers on the mainland, as well as contracts with some studios prohibiting any satellite service but Sky TV having access to the United Kingdom and Ireland markets.
Licensing agreements involving the studios and European broadcasters Canal Plus of France, Sky Italia, Sky Deutschland in Germany and Spain's DTS are also under investigation by the EU.
The European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, claims the contracts between movie studios and broadcasters amounts to "absolute territorial exclusivity" and eliminates cross-border competition. The investigation is one of a number of EU probes as it attempts to create a single digital market in the 28-country economic bloc.
"European consumers want to watch the pay TV channels of their choice regardless of where they live or travel in the EU," Margrethe Vestager, EU competition policy commissioner said in a statement.
The investigation comes after similar antitrust probes of computer chip manufacturer Qualcomm, Google, MasterCard, Amazon and Russian energy company Gazprom.
