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Interesting-ish news for a Thursday morning...
The EU Court Of First Instance has ruled, rather too late, that the Sony and BMG labels should not be permitted to merge. Of course, the pair did merge, like, two-or-something years ago.
An appeal was lodged by IMPALA, a pan-European trade body, and seems to have been successful. Ish. After all, it's not like the merger can be stopped, and it's unlikely the company will de-merge.
What it does mean, though, is EMI's repeated attempts at buying Warners, and subsequently merging, are likely to come to nothing - even if Warners' shareholders were finally appeased financially (or vice-versa, as Warners made a bid for EMI at the end of last month), it seems that now they would not be permitted to merge under the EU ruling.
Of course, we're not the Financial Times, so what do we really know... oh, look! A cloud that's shaped like a pair of boobies! Weeeeeeeee...
