The ACCC has announced it will not oppose the proposed acquisition of MGM by Amazon, saying the deal was “unlikely to substantially lessen competition in any market in Australia.”

The main rub investigated by the ACCC surrounded whether Amazon would be likely to withhold or worsen the terms for competitors to access MGM’s content, in order to house it exclusively on Prime Video.

“While some market participants raised concerns about Amazon’s acquisition of a large AV content producer, such as MGM, our investigation found that exhibitors do not rely heavily on MGM content to attract customers,” ACCC Commissioner Stephen Ridgeway said.

“Despite its back catalogue, MGM has only had a small number of theatrical releases in Australia in recent years. With the exception of the James Bond franchise, these titles have accounted for less than 6 per cent of total box office revenues in Australia in any given year since 2016.

“A number of streaming platforms have also been successful in Australia, despite not licensing any MGM content, or licensing only a small number of titles,” Ridgeway said.

The ACCC concluded that “even if Amazon were to restrict or reduce licensing to third parties, this would not result in a substantial lessening of competition in any downstream Australian market.”

While they have the green light in Australia, the proposed acquisition is subject to reviews by regulators in other jurisdictions, and most crucially, in the US.