How Brookfield's $18b Origin play is on shaky legal ground
Senior competition lawyers warn one of the key legal arguments being used to justify the deal is unlikely to succeed with the ACCC in its current form.
Canadian investment giant Brookfield's $18.7 billion bid for Origin Energy is already facing pressure from sections of the investment community. Now, senior competition lawyers warn one of the key legal arguments being used to justify the deal with regulators is on shaky ground.
Brookfield's consortium has less than six weeks to convince the ACCC of one of two arguments for their deal to get over the line: Either that the tie-up won't substantially lessen competition in three key energy markets; or that the public benefit of the proposed acquisition outweighs the likely resulting public detriment.
The companies' initial submission on the deal focused on the latter issue and specifically the environmental benefits of the deal, highlighting Brookfield's pledge to spend between $20 billion and $30 billion on renewable energy investments over the next decade.
But senior competition lawyers who have observed the deal say the public benefit arguments are unlikely to convince the competition regulator, which under Gina Cass-Gottlieb has recently opposed large scale corporate transactions via its merger authorisation process.
