The Tribunal has approved, with conditions, the proposed merger between VKB Landbou (Pty) Ltd (VKB) and Multi Green (Pty) Ltd.
 
VKB is a private company involved in various agricultural activities countrywide, through its subsidiaries. Multi Green specialises in the precision blending of granular and liquid fertilizers. The Free State based company also sells fertilizer to farmers in the Free State, Mpumalanga, Gauteng, North West and Northern Cape.
 
The Commission found that the transaction did not raise any competition or public interest concerns and recommended that the Tribunal approve the merger without conditions.
 
However, during the hearing before the Tribunal, the Tribunal was concerned that the merger could facilitate the exchange of competitively sensitive information. The concern was prompted by a complaint received from one of Multi Green’s competitors during the Commission’s investigation.
 
The complaint alleged that VKB, which provides finance/credit to farmers to produce agricultural inputs such as fertilizer, has access to competitively sensitive information of competing suppliers of fertilizer. Post-merger Multi Green could have access to the competitively sensitive information, by virtue of being part of VKB and thereby undermine competition in the supply of fertilizer to farmers.
 
To address the concerns, the Tribunal required that the merger be approved with the following conditions, to which VKB and Multi Green agreed: