O2 (UK) telephone line and broadband business of Telefónica UK, trading under the O2 and Be brands. The company agreed to pay £180 million initially, followed by a further £20 million after all customers had been transferred to Sky's existing business. The sale was subject to regulatory approval in April 2013, and was subsequently approved by the Office of Fair Trading on 16 May 2013. O2 began trialling a Near Field Communication (NFC) payment system in 2007. In 2009, O2 was in discussions with large retailers, such as Tesco and W. H. Smith, for the deployment of the necessary electronic point of
Alcohol monopoly alcohol monopoly also formerly existed in Taiwan between 1947 and 2002, when the Taiwanese market was opened to overseas brands as part of its admission to the WTO in 2002. The alcohol monopoly was created in the Swedish town of Falun in 1850, to prevent overconsumption and reduce the profit motive for sales of alcohol. It later went all over the country in 1905 when the Swedish parliament ordered all sales of vodka to be done via local alcohol monopolies. In 1895, Russia established a state monopoly on alcohol, which became a major source of revenue for the Russian government.