European competition regulators will come to a final decision on whether to allow Hutchison Whampoa’s 3 Ireland to acquire Telefonica’s O2 operations on 20 June.

The new deadline was published on the European Commission website and comes after officials requested additional information from Hutchison about the concessions it is prepared to make in order for the proposed €850 million deal to be approved.

The original deadline was 24 April but the European Commission halted its scrutiny of the deal in order to take account of the additional information.

Hong Kong-based Hutchison Whampoa operates in six European mobile markets under the 3 brand. Taking over O2 in Ireland would make the combined entity the second-largest operator in Ireland, behind market leader Vodafone.

Hutchison submitted a range of concessions in March, as the competition regulator expressed concern over the reduction in the number of operators in Ireland from four to three.

The concessions are believed to include the setting up of a new MVNO, which would later be able to buy some of the merged company’s radio spectrum and customer base. Hutchison is reportedly also prepared to sacrifice spectrum and customers to a smaller rival and continue a network sharing arrangement with Eircom subsidiary Meteor.

3 Ireland previously argued that its acquisition of O2 will improve competition in the Irish market, which has one dominant player in the form of Vodafone and three others lagging behind. It argued that the gap to the market leader will grow if 3 and O2 do not merge.

It added that the acquisition would give the combined company “the scale and financial strength” to compete “aggressively” in the market to benefit consumers. It would also allow it to roll out LTE services.

The Irish consolidation is seen as a test case for future M&A activity in the European telecoms sector along with Telefonica’s proposed acquisition of E-Plus in Germany from Dutch group KPN.

Telefonica was reported this week to have tweaked the concessions it offered to make to secure European Union approval for the E-Plus deal.