{"id":88066,"date":"2018-01-17T07:00:06","date_gmt":"2018-01-17T07:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?guid=89f1e68f803c020dcb82343bfe7c8366"},"modified":"2018-01-17T07:00:06","modified_gmt":"2018-01-17T07:00:06","slug":"news-story-refresco-proposal-to-sell-soft-drink-factory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?p=88066","title":{"rendered":"News story: Refresco proposal to sell soft drink factory"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"govspeak\">\n<p>Earlier this month, the Competition and Markets Authority (<abbr title=\"Competitions and Markets Authority\">CMA<\/abbr>) found that the proposed merger of the soft drink manufacturers could lead to higher prices for some supermarkets and leading household brands.<\/p>\n<p>The <abbr title=\"Competitions and Markets Authority\">CMA<\/abbr>\u2019s initial investigation into the \u00a3935 million ($1.25 billion) merger did not find any competition concerns for the majority of the companies\u2019 products.<\/p>\n<p>However, both companies supply juice drinks using a particular aseptic production process, which allows them to be sold preservative-free and without refrigeration. As only one other competitor in the UK currently supplies third parties with juice drinks using this production process the <abbr title=\"Competitions and Markets Authority\">CMA<\/abbr> is concerned that, after the merger, the combined business might be able to increase prices or lower quality standards.<\/p>\n<p>Refresco has now offered to address the <abbr title=\"Competitions and Markets Authority\">CMA<\/abbr>\u2019s concerns by selling the only UK-based Cott facility to use this production process. The factory, located in Nelson, Lancashire, would be sold to a purchaser approved by the <abbr title=\"Competitions and Markets Authority\">CMA<\/abbr>.<\/p>\n<p>The <abbr title=\"Competitions and Markets Authority\">CMA<\/abbr> has accepted this offer in principle and now has until 14 March 2018 to decide whether to accept Refresco\u2019s proposed undertakings or refer the merger for an in depth investigation.<\/p>\n<p>All information relating to the merger is available on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/cma-cases\/refresco-cott-merger-inquiry\">case page<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Refresco has offered to sell a specialist factory to address the CMA\u2019s concerns about its merger with soft drink rival Cott.<\/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\/88066"}],"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=88066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88066\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=88066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=88066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=88066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}