The Competition & Markets Authority has launched an inquiry into Asda’s £600m acquisition of Co-op’s forecourt stores.
The competition watchdog said it had gathered enough information into the deal for 132 stores, which was announced last August, to enable it to begin an investigation for the purposes of deciding whether it needs to go to a deeper Phase 2 inquiry.
It has given itself a deadline of 14 March to announce whether such an inquiry will be needed.
The CMA did not disclose any further details of the parameters of its inquiry or whether it would factor in EG Group forecourts, which are also run by Asda’s joint owners the Issa brothers.
In September, The Grocer commissioned research from location intelligence experts CACI into what action the CMA may require in order to allow the deal to go through.
Based on sites owned by Asda and EG Group, CACI found that 12 to 16 of the 132 Co-op sites could be in breach of the CMA’s ‘four to three rule’, whereby a deal that reduced the number of sites in a local area that were owned by different operators from four to three would significantly lessen competition. Asda may therefore have to dispose of around 10% of the sites to secure the deal.
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