30th Jun 2006 11:21
Office of Fair Trading30 June 2006 "Merger Order: The OFT has served an Order pursuant to section 75 of the Enterprise Act 2002(the Act) on Greene King plc (Greene King) requiring Greene King's compliancewith divestment undertakings given by Greene King to the OFT in lieu of areference to the Competition Commission. The undertakings were accepted by theOFT on 6 October 2004 following Greene King's acquisition of Laurel Pub HoldingsLimited. In the undertakings, Greene King agreed to divest 13 pubs in seven PSDs to abuyer or buyers to be approved by the OFT by 5 April 2005. Greene King hasdisposed of 12 of the 13 relevant pubs but as yet has failed to dispose of theone remaining pub in the Oxford area in the timeframe provided in theundertakings, despite extensions being granted by the OFT to enable Greene Kingto do so. Therefore, the OFT considers the undertakings have not been and arenot being complied with. Given this, the OFT considers it appropriate to make anOrder requiring Greene King's compliance with the undertakings. In the eventGreene King fails to divest the remaining pub within 3 months from today the OFTmay apply to the court to enforce the Order pursuant to section 94 of the Act. The OFT publicly consulted on this Order from 10 May to 22 June 2006. The Order will be placed on the Office of Fair Trading's web site at http://www.oft.gov.uk/Business/Mergers+EA02/Register/index.htm and will also appear inthe Office's Weekly Gazette as soon as is reasonably practicable." This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock ExchangeRelated Shares:
Greene King