After three years of wrangling, publisher Sanoma has final approval to acquire Iddink, schoolbook distributor and owner of the widely used digital learning resources platform Magister. The Authority Consumer & Market (ACM) rightly granted a license in 2019, under the condition that Magister must remain accessible to other publishers. This is what the Trade and Industry Appeals Tribunal (CBb) ruled on appeal this week.
The acquisition was in jeopardy after a judge annulled the conditional approval by the ACM in the spring of 2021. This was because one of the justifications behind the conditions was deemed insufficiently substantiated by the judge at the time. That related to whether or not there was a need in the market to bundle the electronic learning environment with learning materials, such as textbooks. According to the ACM, there was virtually no such market need, but the court found this to be insufficiently researched at the time. Additional research by the market regulator , however, led to the same conclusion.
