The European Union’s regulatory body, The European Commission, announced over the weekend that it has approved unconditionally the proposed acquisition of Interpublic Group by Omnicom. 

The EU was the last regional market that the two holding companies needed approval from before completing the transaction. 

In its announcement, The Commission concluded that the merger would “raise no competition concerns in the European Economic Area (‘EEA').” 

Based on its investigation, the Commission found that the merged company would hold “moderate market positions” in advertising and media buying services within the EU and globally and that the merged entity would be “sufficiently constrained by the presence of several competitors, including large international advertising groups with a global reach, such as WPP, Dentsu-Aegis, Publicis and Havas.” 

The EC statement added that “Should the merged entity try to use its position on the market for the provision of [media buying services] to increase its negotiating power with media owners, the latter would maintain sufficient countervailing power due to the significant degree of concentration of media owners in the relevant European countries.” 

The EC began its investigation in May. The Federal Trade Commission gave its final decision in September with significant restrictions including on the company's ability to take publishers' content into account when purchasing ad inventory. 

There was no immediate comment from Omnicom on the approval although the company has said it expects to complete the transaction by the end of this month.