The owners of Formula 1, Liberty Media, could be facing a legal investigation as a Belgian MEP has reportedly escalated an issue with the European Commission.
Liberty Media is a mass media company that gained ownership of the Formula One Group, completing their acquisition in 2017.
The company is led by CEO Greg Maffei, who is also the chairman of Live Nation Entertainment, Sirius XM, TripAdvisor, Starz and Expedia, as well as the former chief financial officer of Oracle and Microsoft.
Since purchasing F1, Liberty Media have transformed the sport, particularly through Netflix docu-series Drive to Survive, into a global sport growing their audience in America, where three US races are now hosted in Miami, Austin and Las Vegas.
Greg Maffei has taken over F1 and Moto GP in his role as Liberty Media CEOF1 has expanded in the US since Liberty Media have taken over
Belgian MEP calls for investigation into Liberty Media
Liberty Media also owns F1 feeder series Formula 2 and 3, and is in the process of taking over MotoGP, whilst their sister company Liberty Global controls the all-electric racing series Formula E.
However, this has reportedly left Belgian MEP Pascal Arimont with the belief that the company have a monopoly, and he has written to the European Commission about their activities.
According to HBvL, Arimont wants the European Commission to investigate whether Liberty Media complies with competition rules “in order to protect consumers and guarantee fair competition”.
As merely part of the Liberty Media portfolio, F1 are not related to the above calls for a legal investigation.
Arimont, a member of European Parliament for the Christian Social Party, has though on a separate account taken issue with F1’s refusal to admit Andretti-Cadillac into the sport as an eleventh team.
Andretti's F1 bid was rejected at the beginning of this year
Andretti’s bid to join F1 had been approved by the FIA, however was rejected as F1 did not believe they could offer value to the series or become a competitive applicant.
"Commercial agreements make it very difficult for new teams to enter F1, possibly restricting competition in an illegal way," Arimont said.
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