{"id":65941,"date":"2015-12-29T11:00:56","date_gmt":"2015-12-29T11:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?guid=1ec0cc120ba342a1e2845a493d3336d8"},"modified":"2015-12-29T11:00:56","modified_gmt":"2015-12-29T11:00:56","slug":"news-story-cma-refers-pharmacy-merger-for-in-depth-investigation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?p=65941","title":{"rendered":"News story: CMA refers pharmacy merger for in-depth investigation"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"govspeak\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/news\/pharmacy-merger-faces-in-depth-investigation\">Earlier this month<\/a>, the Competition and Markets Authority (<abbr title=\"Competition and Markets Authority\">CMA<\/abbr>) said that it would refer the merger for an in-depth investigation unless Celesio offered acceptable undertakings to address the <abbr title=\"Competition and Markets Authority\">CMA<\/abbr>\u2019s competition concerns.<\/p>\n<p>The <abbr title=\"Competition and Markets Authority\">CMA<\/abbr>\u2019s initial investigation identified 78 local areas where customers may be affected by a loss of competition between Lloyds Pharmacy (a Celesio subsidiary) and Sainsbury\u2019s pharmacies. The <abbr title=\"Competition and Markets Authority\">CMA<\/abbr> also indicated that in other local areas it had been unable to reach a positive conclusion on whether the merger gives rise to a realistic prospect of a substantial lessening of competition.<\/p>\n<p>Celesio has not offered any undertakings in lieu and the <abbr title=\"Competition and Markets Authority\">CMA<\/abbr> will therefore now refer the merger.<\/p>\n<p>A decision on the merger will be made by a group of independent panel members supported by a case team of <abbr title=\"Competition and Markets Authority\">CMA<\/abbr> staff. The deadline for the final report will be 13 June 2016.<\/p>\n<p>Details of the <abbr title=\"Competition and Markets Authority\">CMA<\/abbr>\u2019s decision will be available on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/cma-cases\/celesio-sainsbury-s-pharmacy-business-merger-inquiry\">case page<\/a> in due course.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The CMA has referred Celesio\u2019s anticipated acquisition of Sainsbury\u2019s pharmacy business for a phase 2 investigation.<\/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\/65941"}],"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=65941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65941\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=65941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=65941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=65941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}