SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
Updating the market, Australia ASX-listed gambling group Tabcorp Holdings has confirmed that it has fully settled its Tatts Group merger dispute with competitor Crownbet Limited.
“CrownBet has agreed not to apply for judicial review of the Tribunal’s decision on 22 November 2017 to grant authorisation for the Transaction. CrownBet has also agreed not to take any action which would impede the implementation of the Transaction.” detailed Tabcorp in its latest corporate update
Market rival Crownbet had been the leading opponent of the Tabcorp-Tatts combination, putting forward a number of industry stakeholder concerns in regards to racing and pricing with the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC)
Seeking to fast-track its AUS $11 billion merger with Tatts, Tabcorp governance switched regulatory supervising body in March, dropping the ACCC for the Australian Competition Tribunal (ACT).
However, the ACCC and Crownbet would win a Federal Court appeal against the ACT’s review of Tabcorp-Tatts, with judges citing that the ACT had made a ‘number of review errors in its assessment of the merger and by not taking into account wider stakeholder concerns addressed by the ACCC.
To the dismay of Tabcorp investors, the Federal Court would demand a second ACT review of Tabcorp-Tatts delaying the merger, which is nearing the one-year mark.
Completing its second deal review this November, ACT officials gave Tabcorp the merger go-ahead. This morning Tabcorp issued a corporate statement detailing that Crownbet has settled its opposition to the proposed merger.
Clearing a major hurdle towards its merger enlargement, Tabcorp has further agreed on a commercial arrangement with CrownBet to become its supplier a digital stream of SKY 1 and SKY 2 to CrownBet for the personal use of its Australian wagering customers on their own mobile and PC devices.
