Tower Sharing With Conditions: What the Zain and Ooredoo Clearance Means for Kuwaiti Telecom Deals

Kuwait's Competition Protection Agency (CPA) has approved the joint tower company planned by Zain and Ooredoo, but only with conditions attached. Decision No. 105 of 2026, adopted by the CPA board on 22 September 2026 and published in Kuwait Al-Youm Issue 1812, page 44, dated 11 October 2026, clears the joint control of MENA Infra B.V. subject to an access obligation and a reporting obligation. This follows our earlier coverage of the filing, including the blog article 'One Tower Company for Two Markets: What the Zain and Ooredoo Filing Means for Kuwaiti Merger Control'.

Why this matters

Most merger decisions that reach the gazette are simple approvals. A conditional approval tells the market something more useful: what the CPA is worried about and what it expects in return. Here the worry is plain. Once the towers of two large groups sit in one company, every other operator that needs a mast site depends on that company. The decision is a first guide to how the CPA will treat shared infrastructure in Kuwait.

What the CPA required

Under the decision, Ooredoo takes 50 percent of MENA Infra and Zain Infra for Modern Telecommunications Services W.L.L. holds the other half. Through its operating companies, MENA Infra will own the towers of both groups in Kuwait and Qatar. The CPA approved the deal on two conditions.

The first is an access obligation. The parties must make the passive infrastructure sites they own or manage available to all licensed operators, on technical and financial terms that are fair, transparent and non-discriminatory, and on terms comparable to those they apply to themselves and their affiliates in similar cases. Passive infrastructure means the physical, non-electronic parts of a mobile site, typically the tower or mast and the land and shelter around it. The second is a reporting obligation: the parties must give the CPA sample contracts concluded with their customers.

The gazette text does not say how long the conditions last, who will monitor them or what follows a breach. Those details may sit in the parties' undertakings or the CPA's own file, and anyone who relies on the condition should ask for them.

What changes in practice

For other licensed mobile operators, the condition is a right to ask. A rival that needs space on a MENA Infra site can point to the decision and insist on terms no worse than those the Zain and Ooredoo groups give themselves. The sample-contract duty gives the CPA a way to check, because it can compare what the group companies pay with what outsiders are offered.

For landlords, site owners and contractors, a larger tower company usually means standard-form contracts and tougher bargaining. The decision does not regulate their dealings with MENA Infra directly, but it does set a fairness benchmark that is easier to cite when negotiating renewals.

For investors and deal teams, the lesson is that the CPA will accept a behavioural remedy rather than refuse a deal that pools infrastructure. Parties should expect to be asked how competitors will get access, and should build that answer, and the time to agree it, into the deal timetable and long-stop date.

Practical steps

Operators and other users of tower space should list the sites they rent or plan to rent and record the current price and terms, so they can later show whether a differently treated customer exists. Anyone negotiating with the new tower company should ask for a clause that repeats the CPA's fair, transparent and non-discriminatory standard. Companies planning their own infrastructure combinations in Kuwait should raise remedies with the CPA early, rather than after the objection period.

WEFAQ's view: the decision is helpful because it names a standard that can be used in real contracts. Its weakness is the lack of public detail on enforcement. Until that is clear, the safest approach for anyone who depends on these towers is to document every request for access and every response.

•   •   •

The same issue of the gazette records three further approvals without conditions: My Boutique Holding and Apotheca Trading (Decision 106), Toyota and cellcentric (Decision 107), and EQT and Intertek (Decision 108).

Source: Competition Protection Agency Decisions Nos. 105 to 108 of 2026, Kuwait Al-Youm Issue 1812, pages 44 to 46, dated 11 October 2026; Law No. 72 of 2020 on the Protection of Competition.

This article is provided for general information only and does not constitute legal advice. For advice specific to your circumstances, please contact WEFAQ Law Firm.