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4 Mar 2020
Insight
Australia
We assess the Federal Court's decision to overrule competition regulators to back $15bn telecoms merger.
On 13 February 2020, the Federal Court of Australia declared that the proposed merger between TPG Telecom Limited (TPG) and Vodafone Hutchison Australia (Vodafone) would not have the likely effect of substantially lessening competition in the retail mobile market, and therefore would not contravene of section 50 of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (CCA).
Subject to any ACCC appeal (which must be lodged by 12 March 2020), the Court’s decision effectively overrules the ACCC’s May 2019 decision to oppose the transaction, and provides TPG and Vodafone with competition clearance to proceed with the proposed $15 billion merger.
The HSF contested mergers team assisted TPG in achieving this great outcome. With this recent success, the HSF contested mergers team has acted in and won five of the seven contested merger cases in the last 15 years.
Our update summarises Middleton J’s findings on the three issues critical to the Court’s decision, focusing on the key TPG evidence.
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