Barclay Brothers Move To Oppose Plurality Test

The Barclay brothers are understood to be planning to petition Trade and Industry Secretary, Patricia Hewitt, to prevent her from launching a public interest test into their £665 million acquisition of the Telegraph titles.

It is understood that staff at the Daily and Sunday Telegraph have agreed to write to the Department of Trade and Industry setting out their reasons why Hewitt should let the deal though without a full-scale investigation.

An inquiry into the deal could delay the take-over process and cast doubt over the entire purchase if the Government deems it necessary to investigate the possibility of a monopoly being formed by the Barclay’s ownership of Scotsman and the Business newspapers.

However, the take-over is unlikely to be deemed against the public interest, given that the billionaire brothers do not own another national newspaper and have a history of non-interference in editorial matters.

The Department of Trade and Industry was given the power to intervene in major media mergers that it believes raise competition concerns under the Government’s recently passed Communications Act. The DTI will pass its concerns onto Ofcom, which will investigate the public interest implications of the deals in question (see Ofcom Chairman Welcomes Puttnam’s Plurality Test).

Earlier this month Daily Mail & General Trust was forced to withdraw from the race to take control of the Telegraph titles, claiming that the price had risen too high. However, the newspaper group was also concerned that if successful, its bid could be blocked on competition grounds (see Daily Mail Pulls Out Of Race For Telegraph Titles).

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