and Erf 7 have also undertaken to notify the Commission of any future transactions that constitute a notifiable merger, to refrain from engaging in prior implementation of notifiable mergers in contravention of the Act and to update their corporate governance by enhancing Nedbank’s competition law compliance programmes to ensure that its employees, management and executive directors do not engage in future contraventions of the Act.
After Nedbank exercised its security interest, it acquired sole control of Erf 7 effectively from 24 August 2017. The Commission found that this transaction constituted a merger and was notifiable in terms of section 13A of the Act; and that Nedbank and Erf 7 implemented this transaction without prior approval and therefore contravened section 13A of the Act .In the merger filing, they acknowledged that the transaction was a notifiable large merger and that their conduct of implementing the merger without the required prior approval was an unintentional contravention of the Act.
Following the voluntary disclosure made by Nedbank and Erf 7, the Commission assessed the large merger and recommended to the Tribunal that the transaction be unconditionally approved. The Tribunal approved the large merger without conditions.