The Tribunal has released the public version of its reasons for its decision to conditionally approve the merger between Hapag-Lloyd Aktiengesellschaft (“’HL AG”) and DAL Deutsche Africa-Linien GmbH & Co. KG (“DAL”).
 
HL AG will acquire the DAL liner and agency business from the Von Rantzau-Essberger Group. The South African leg of the proposed transaction entails HL AG acquiring all shares in DAL Agency, DAL Transport, and Simba Africa.
 
Reasons
 
The Tribunal’s reasons and the merger conditions are available on the Tribunal website at www.comptrib.co.za. Below is a brief summary:
 
After considering the matter, the Tribunal concluded that the transaction is unlikely to substantially lessen or prevent competition in any relevant market, or to have a negative impact on the public interest. The Tribunal approved the proposed merger with an employment-related condition.
 
On employment, the merging parties submitted that HL AG does not anticipate a negative merger-specific impact on employment in South Africa. The employee representative of HL AG confirmed that employees have been notified of the proposed transaction and that no concerns have been raised.
 
The employees of the target business raised concerns with the proposed transaction regarding potential retrenchment. The merging parties, in addressing the employees’ concerns, indicated that they would be willing to commit that, for a period of 36 months after closing of the merger, there will be no merger-specific job losses or retrenchments in South Africa. Such undertaking by the merging parties was imposed as a condition for the merger’s approval and there will, therefore, be no merger-related retrenchments for three years from the merger’s implementation date.
 
The merger parties
 
HL AG is a stock corporation incorporated in accordance with the laws of Germany. It is active in the international shipping business and provides international container liner shipping services, offering global door-to-door and port-to-port containerised cargo services under the Hapag-Lloyd brand.
 
DAL is also incorporated in terms of the laws of Germany. The DAL liner and agency business provides liner shipping services for the transportation of containerised cargo between Europe, Africa and the Indian Ocean.

Issued by Gillian de Gouveia, Communications Officer on behalf of the Competition Tribunal of South Africa