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The European Commission is set to investigate Universal Music Group’s planned $775mn acquisition of independent music services company Downtown Music, amid claims the deal will give too much power to the industry’s largest player.
Brussels will announce the probe into the deal on Friday, officials briefed on the preparations told the Financial Times.
Representatives of independent music companies have been urging competition authorities to review and block the deal, which was announced in December 2024, arguing it would make Universal even more dominant in the music industry’s ecosystem.
Downtown Music provides a range of services in the music industry, such as managing copyright, royalties, marketing, promotion and distribution to streaming platforms.
The commission, which oversees EU antitrust laws, will act on a referral from the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets, the officials said. Universal’s corporate headquarters are located in the Netherlands and the company is listed on the Dutch stock exchange.
Brussels has sweeping powers to impose fines or block mergers that it decides have breached EU competition rules.
Universal Music is by far the world’s largest music company. The Los Angeles-based group, home to performers such as Taylor Swift and Kendrick Lamar, controlled 37 per cent of the US market in the first quarter of 2025, according to Billboard, the entertainment magazine.
However, in recent years the big record labels — Universal Music, Sony Music and Warner Music — have suffered declining shares of listening on Spotify. In 2024, songs owned by the three major labels and Merlin, a group representing large indies, made up about 71 per cent of total listening on streaming service Spotify, down from 87 per cent in 2017.
Universal’s acquisition of Downtown is the latest example of the majors swallowing up smaller independent labels. Sony Music in 2021 acquired label services group Awal, while Warner Music in 2021 bought 300 Entertainment, the label behind rapper Megan Thee Stallion, and in 2023 took a majority stake in Elliott Grainge’s 10k Projects.
The European independent trade association Impala has voiced concern over Downtown Music’s ownership of independent distributors Fuga and CD Baby.
It argues that Universal Music’s alleged “juggernaut strategy of acquisitions to gatekeep market access and exert power over digital services, as well as control a whole host of essential services across the music market” threatens independent artists and labels.
Universal Music Group said the company looks “forward to continuing to co-operate with the commission . . . We are confident that we will close this acquisition in the second half of the year, on its original timeline”.
The commission did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
