He said that although the merger does not come under MyCC’s purview, the commission should be allowed to study it for pre-approval.

Commercial activities are regulated under the Competition Act 2010 but some businesses regulated under different legislations are excluded. This involves those in the telecommunications, energy, petroleum and aviation industries.

In the case of the telecommunications sector, the regulator is the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), which has given its assurance that it has the tools in place to prevent monopolies.

Najib, however, said a merger of this magnitude needs to be scrutinised by the MyCC.

“The reality is that Celcom and Digi’s combined market share for mobile subscribers is over 67%. Such market dominance will hurt competition and this ultimately hurts consumers,” he told FMT.

The Pekan MP said he was concerned about analysts’ views that the merger will benefit Digi more than Celcom. This, he said, was because Digi’s major shareholder is Telenor, the Norwegian state-owned enterprise.

Celcom on the other hand is owned 100% by Axiata, whose shareholders include individuals, banks, companies, and government agencies, among others.

According to its website, foreign shareholding only makes up 10.3% of the total shareholding.

Citing an AmInvestment Bank report, Najib said that under the terms of the merger, Digi was being valued at 67% more than Celcom.

“In fact, Axiata’s annual profits will fall by 10% while Digi’s will increase by 5% after the merger.”

Najib added that he hoped the authorities would take a more proactive approach to the merger to ensure that the interests of all stakeholders and consumers were protected.