Ashurst secures landmark UK Competition Commission clearance

An Ashurst Competition Department team led by partner Nigel Parr and senior associate Steven Vaz has secured a landmark UK Competition Commission (CC) clearance for Imerys SA's acquisition of the china clay business of Goonvean Limited, by negotiating an unprecedented five-year price control remedy which will expire completely at the end of 2018. The remedy will enable Imerys to fully integrate the businesses without a costly total or partial divestiture, and will safeguard the long-term future of china clay production in Cornwall.

Imerys is the largest industrial minerals company in the world and produces china clay from pits in Cornwall. Goonvean also produces china clay in Cornwall. The completed merger was referred to the CC as the OFT identified competition concerns in four UK markets - kaolin for paper filler, tableware, sanitaryware and performance minerals, with the CC finding that the parties had combined market shares ranging from 50-100% in these markets and faced limited import competition. However, the CC ultimately accepted that there was a substantial lessening of competition (SLC) in only part of one of these markets (for performance minerals).

The CC's guidelines state that behavioural remedies will only be accepted in exceptional circumstances and emphasise that even in such circumstances, price control remedies will be unlikely to be acceptable. In practice, the CC has not accepted price control remedies outside regulated utilities sectors.