AGRANA - ATYS: Actual Status of the Antitrust Proceedings
Date: 22.04.2004Actual status of the antitrust proceedings: approval in France and Hungary, interdiction in Germany.
In spite of this preliminary decision AGRANA expresses its confidence to finalise the step-by-step acquisition of ATYS with Butler Capital Partners as it was agreed in January of this year.
There has been the necessity to file the case to the competition authorities in eight countries.
Two of them – France, Hungary – approved the planned transaction, one – USA – announced, that they will approve in the next few days. In four countries – Mexico, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria - the cases are still pending and AGRANA is optimistic to get an approval in the next weeks.
In Germany the Bundeskartellamt interdicted in the first stage the transaction. For AGRANA that was surprising, because the Bundeskartellamt expressed in an official paper its opinion, that it doesn’t see any reason not to approve the merger, three weeks before.
In light of this 180-degree turnaround AGRANA will enforce all legal possibilities now at the second stage to get the approval in Germany.