Cable & Wireless Optus-AAPT

Cable & Wireless Optus today has offered to provide the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission with an undertaking that it will not proceed with the dispatch of its Part A statement to bid for AAPT before Monday 31 May 1999.

The ACCC has advised Cable & Wireless Optus that at this stage it has concerns about the likely effect on competition of its proposal. The company is providing further information to the ACCC to assist it in its considerations.

"The ACCC will review the additional information with a view to a speedy decision on the future of the proposed merger," ACCC Chairman, Professor Allan Fels, said today.

Cable & Wireless Optus' offer of an undertaking was influenced by the ACCC's experience in other Federal Court cases which is that the public interest is best served by having the legality under the Trade Practices Act 1974 of a takeover decided before offers are sent to shareholders.