French telecoms group Iliad has received approval from EU competition authorities to proceed with its acquisition of Polish cellco Play. Iliad announced last month that it had agreed to acquire a 40% stake in Play from its two reference shareholders and is launching a public tender for the remaining shares in a deal which values Play at around EUR2.2 billion (USD2.6 billion). Play is Poland’s second largest cellco by subscribers, with 12.45 million active customers at the end of June.