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Antimonopoly service to determine working conditions for Yandex.Taxi and Uber merger

Yandex.Taxi and Uber agreed to combine their taxi businesses in Russia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Georgia and Kazakhstan

MOSCOW, October 27. /TASS/. The Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) is going to determine conditions for the conduct of the merger deal between Uber and Yandex.Taxi in the field of pricing, security and provision of services, Head of FAS Igor Artemyev told reporters.

"We are currently studying this deal. Of course, there will be a directive. The terms of this directive are an essential subject of discussion between the antimonopoly and other regulators - the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Economic Development," Artemyev said.

He also explained the essence of the directive. "It will include behavioral conditions associated with characteristics, primarily with prices, services, rules of conduct and compliance with legislation, with security," he said.

Yandex said earlier that as part of an agreement with Uber to join businesses in Russia and a number of other countries, will have access to Uber technologies to develop a self-driving car. Currently, Yandex is developing its autonomous car project.

Yandex.Taxi and Uber announced earlier that the companies agreed to combine their taxi businesses in Russia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Georgia and Kazakhstan.

According to the report from Yandex, both Yandex.Taxi and Uber app will operate as before, driver apps, on the other hand, will be transitioned to a unified platform. "This combined driver platform will significantly increase the number of available cars, reduce passenger wait time, and boost vehicle utilization. Drivers will be able to perform more trips per hour while passengers will continue to enjoy affordable prices," the company said.

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Yandex expects green light for Uber merger from antimonopoly service in November

The new company will also operate the UberEATS service in the region.

Uber will invest $225 mln and Yandex will invest $100 mln into the joint venture, valuing it at $3.725 bln on a post-money basis. "On a pro forma basis, Yandex will own 59.3% of the merged company, Uber will own 36.6%, and employees will own 4.1%," Yandex said.

Yandex does not rule out the initial public offering (IPO) for the new Yandex.Taxi and Uber and company, Yandex press service told TASS. "We do not rule it out," the press service said.

The transaction is still subject to regulatory approvals and is scheduled to close in the Q4 2017.

The two teams will be integrated together and the current CEO of Yandex.Taxi Tigran Khudaverdyan, CEO of Yandex.Taxi, will serve as the CEO.

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