GUETERSLOH, Germany, July 19 (AFP) - European Commission regulators have cleared a merger between the music businesses of Japanese electronics group Sony and German media company Bertelsmann, sources close to the companies said Monday.
The commission, the European Union's executive arm, is set make its verdict on the merger public on Tuesday.
EU regulators opened an inquiry into the deal between Sony's music arm and Bertelsmann's music business BMG in February on concerns that a combined group would dominate the market.
If the merger goes ahead, the market will be carved up between four instead of five majors: Vivendi's Universal, the newly-created SonyBMG, Warner and EMI. Together they would share around 80 percent of European recorded music sales.
The European and US competition authorities have run parallel investigations into the merger, which will create the world's largest music company by market share according to 2003 figures.
The merger will bring together Sony stars such as Barbara Streisand and Beyonce and BMG stars, including Elvis Presley and Christina Aguilera.
The Japanese and German parent groups argue that their businesses need to join forces to tackle the crisis in the global music industry faced with both pirate CDs and an explosion of illegal music downloading.