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New Zealand: Court of Appeal rejects proposed media merger

By  |  September 25, 2018
The Court of Appeal has knocked back the proposed media merger between NZME and Stuff. Stuff’s parent company, Fairfax Media, is also the owner of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
The two companies were challenging a judge’s refusal to give the merger the green light after the Commerce Commission first rejected the deal. In May last year, the Commission declined to authorize the tie-up, arguing it would concentrate too much media influence in one business.

The subsequent High Court appeal by New Zealand Herald owner NZME and Stuff was unsuccessful when Justice Robert Dobson found that the regulator was entitled to place significant weight on the perceived loss of media plurality in the deal.

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    The companies then took the challenge to the Court of Appeal, focusing on the regulator rejecting the merger “against a backdrop of very large quantified net benefits,”, which the High Court found to be between NZ$133 million (US$83.4 million) and NZ$209 million (US$138.9 million).

    The Court of Appeal, however, was not swayed and dismissed the challenge on Monday, September 24.

    Full Content: The Sydney Morning Herald

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