Lithuania’s Competition Council has given Estonia’s Ekspress Grupp, the owner of the Delfi news portal, an additional month to sell the lrytas.lt news website, extending the deadline to January 7, 2025.
Ekspress Grupp had asked regulators to push back the original December 7 deadline to meet the obligations imposed in connection with its acquisition of lrytas.lt, the council said December 5.
Part of those obligations – requiring the company to restore the previous situation by selling lrytas.lt back to its former owner, Lietuvos Rytas – has been temporarily suspended by the Regional Administrative Court since March. The suspension remains in place until the court issues a final ruling on whether the council acted lawfully when it blocked the deal earlier this year.
On February 7, the Competition Council ordered Ekspress Grupp to sell one of its two Lithuanian news portals after determining that delfi.lt and lrytas.lt were close competitors and leading market players, together holding more than 40% of the market based on various traffic indicators.
Ekspress Grupp acquired lrytas.lt from Lietuvos Rytas in December 2022. (LRT)