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The Commission’s competition body (DG Competition) has rejected, in full, any suggestion that a deal would infringe on competition laws.
The Irish Farmers Journal exclusively revealed this on Friday morning.
ABP and the other shareholder in Slaney, the Northern Ireland co-op Fane Valley, have been pursuing this venture since the end of last year.
The deal will see ABP control 30% of the country’s cattle kill and 40% of the country’s lamb kill.
Opposition
The IFA has been staunch in its opposition of the deal. The country’s largest farm organisation said such a deal would severely damage competition for farmers to sell cattle to processors – particularly steers (castrated males) and heifers in the south Leinster region.
In August, the IFA published a report by PMCA Economic Consulting which backed up its claims.
However, within 48 hours of the launch of the report, the formal notification to the EU’s Directorate-General for Competition was published. This gave a deadline of 7 October for DG Competition to clear the deal or send it for further analysis and scrutiny.
It would not have been surprising to see it head for further scrutiny given the level of opposition the deal faced in Ireland.
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