{"id":59177,"date":"2015-07-15T11:14:36","date_gmt":"2015-07-15T11:14:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?guid=09653ae5641426463c3dc7d355521838"},"modified":"2015-07-15T11:14:36","modified_gmt":"2015-07-15T11:14:36","slug":"news-story-cma-welcomes-cat-judgment-on-ryanair-and-moves-to-approve-shareholding-sale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?p=59177","title":{"rendered":"News story: CMA welcomes CAT judgment on Ryanair and moves to approve shareholding sale"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"govspeak\">\n<p>Following yesterday\u2019s European Commission decision to approve IAG\u2019s bid for Aer Lingus subject to conditions, the Competition and Markets Authority (<abbr title=\"Competition and Markets Authority\">CMA<\/abbr>) has also moved to grant Ryanair the necessary approvals to sell its 29.8% stake to IAG. <\/p>\n<p>Ryanair had appealed against the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/news\/cma-confirms-requirement-for-ryanair-to-reduce-aer-lingus-shareholding\"><abbr title=\"Competition and Markets Authority\">CMA<\/abbr>\u2019s decision last month<\/a> that there was no material change of circumstances for it not to require Ryanair to reduce its shareholding in Aer Lingus to 5%. Since that decision, Ryanair has announced its intention to sell its shareholding to IAG.<\/p>\n<p>In light of this, the <abbr title=\"Competition and Markets Authority\">CMA<\/abbr> has decided to grant Ryanair approval to sell its shareholding to IAG as a suitable purchaser and to use its vote as an Aer Lingus shareholder to support Aer Lingus\u2019s Board\u2019s recommendations at tomorrow\u2019s extraordinary general meeting (EGM). The <abbr title=\"Competition and Markets Authority\">CMA<\/abbr> has also decided to suspend the requirement to appoint a divestment trustee to carry out the sale, which is one of the terms of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/cma-cases\/ryanair-aer-lingus-merger-inquiry#order\"><abbr title=\"Competition and Markets Authority\">CMA<\/abbr>\u2019s final order<\/a> published following the June decision.   <\/p>\n<p>Simon Polito, Chairman of the Ryanair\/Aer Lingus inquiry group, said:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>We welcome both the <abbr title=\"Competition Appeal Tribunal\">CAT<\/abbr>\u2019s judgment and Ryanair\u2019s decision to sell its stake. This follows several unsuccessful legal challenges against our decision, the latest of which was dismissed today, that it was bad for competition \u2013  and ultimately for passengers \u2013  for Ryanair to retain such an influence over one of its major competitors.<\/p>\n<p class=\"last-child\">Divesting its shareholding removes that concern and we note that the European Commission has accepted commitments from IAG to address its potential concerns over the deal. We have therefore agreed to give the necessary permissions to allow Ryanair to sell its shareholding by accepting the IAG offer.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>In February 2015, Ryanair had requested that the <abbr title=\"Competition and Markets Authority\">CMA<\/abbr> re-examine its decision to require it to divest its 29.8% stake in Aer Lingus down to 5% on the basis that there had been a material change of circumstances since the publication of the Competition Commission\u2019s final report. This request followed the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/news\/cma-welcomes-court-of-appeal-judgment-on-ryanairaer-lingus\">judgment of the Court of Appeal<\/a> dismissing Ryanair\u2019s legal challenge to the final report. The Supreme Court yesterday refused Ryanair\u2019s application for permission to appeal the Court of Appeal\u2019s decision. <\/p>\n<p>All information on the Ryanair\/Aer Lingus inquiry can be found on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/cma-cases\/ryanair-aer-lingus-merger-inquiry\">case page<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The CMA has welcomed the Competition Appeal Tribunal&#8217;s (CAT) decision to dismiss Ryanair\u2019s latest appeal regarding its shareholding in Aer Lingus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59177"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=59177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59177\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=59177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=59177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=59177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}