The sale of Friends Reunited to Brightsolid is to be investigated by the Competition Commission.

The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has asked the Competition Commission (CC) to look into ITV’s sale of Friends Reunited to Brightsolid Group Limited.

ITV sold the social networking website to Brightsolid in August this year for £25 million.

The OFT has requested a study into the sale over fears the family tree research sector will be negatively impacted.

Brightsolid currently owns genealogy websites including Findmypast.com and 1911Census.com. The firm aims to join Friends Reunited subsidiary website Genes Reunited with its own family tree internet pages.

Once merged, there will only two main competitors in the online genealogy sector ¬– Brightsolid and Ancestry.co.uk

Amelia Fletcher, OFT Senior Director of Mergers, said: “People’s growing interest in researching their family tree has made this an increasingly important market.

“The proposed acquisition would see the three main providers of online genealogy services reduced to two, and we are concerned this could lead to a reduction in choice or service for consumers.”

Both ITV and Brightsolid have stated that they are disappointed with the OFT’s decision.

Chris van der Kuyl, Brightsolid CEO, said: “We are disappointed by the decision to refer Brightsolid’s acquisition of Friends Reunited Group to the Competition Commission as we believe the merger will be good for competition and good for consumers.

“We look forward to demonstrating that this is a lively competitive marketplace with a multitude of free and paid offerings available to consumers.”