While the industry was focused on the Cannes Lions Festival last week, Omnicom and IPG received the green light to proceed with their transaction from the New Zealand Commerce Commission, which initiated its probe back in February.  

The approval came with no strings attached, unlike the conditional Consent Order issued by the Federal Trade Commission yesterday, which applies to the U.S. only.  

Deputy Chair Anne Callinan said in a statement that the Commission was satisfied that the acquisition is unlikely to substantially lessen competition in any New Zealand market. 
 
“Our investigation found that, while Omnicom and Interpublic compete to supply marketing and communications services and media buying services to advertiser clients throughout New Zealand, the merged entity is likely to continue to face strong competitive constraint from other large ... agencies, as well as local independent agencies supplying these services, following the acquisition,” stated Callinan. 

With the U.S. and New Zealand approvals in the last two weeks 12 of the 18 countries reviewing the deal have given it the go-ahead, an Omnicom spokesperson confirmed. 

Somewhat oddly, UK authorities decided to open up an investigation last week, about seven months after the companies announced the transaction in December. Not that I’m here to tell them how to do their business. Maybe they were just busy for the first half of the year. Or maybe some aggressive last-minute lobbying by competitors persuaded them that a formal probe was appropriate. But that’s just speculation on my part. 

In any event the companies say they’re still on track to close the deal by the end of the year.