Australia: Tabcorp AU$11b deal for Tatts given green light again

Wagering giant Tabcorp is confident the finishing line is finally in sight for its AU$11 billion (US$8.3 billion) merger with Tatts Group despite the potential of a last-ditch legal bid by rival CrownBet or the corporate regulator to scupper the deal at the 11th hour.

The Australian Competition Tribunal ruled the merger could proceed on Friday and while online bookmaker CrownBet would not rule out making one last move to try to scupper the deal, Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) chairman Rod Sims said the watchdog was comfortable with the outcome, pending the release of the judge’s reasons next week.

“We were very happy with the full court decision, we felt that dealt with all of our issues, so if that is carried forward into this decision than that should be fine. But we need to see those reasons next week,” Mr Sims told AFR Weekend.

“We never got to a view about deciding whether we opposed the merger … we put out a pretty light statement of issues then they took it off to the Tribunal which was very surprising. The only reason we appealed the first Tribunal decision was we felt it set a really worrying precedent for us for future authorisation decisions because we saw the test we applied versus the Tribunal was vastly different.”

Tabcorp and Tatts had originally announced their intention to merge in October last year. Tabcorp subsequently took the unusual decision to circumvent the ACCC’s usual merger approval process and took the deal to the Tribunal, which approved the deal in June.

Full Content: ABC

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