DCA Group Limited - s.87B undertaking

DCA proposes to acquire MIA. The ACCC expressed concern at the competitive effects of the proposed acquisition in the market for the supply of diagnostic imaging service (excluding nuclear medicine and MRI), excluding all in-patients at public hospitals in Adelaide and mid-north rural/Barossa. In order to address the ACCC's competition concerns, DCA has offered the Undertakings which require DCA to:

• divest the seven businesses (the Mayo Clinic, the Memorial Clinic, the Calvary Clinic, the Europa Clinic, the Salisbury Clinic, the Ingle View Clinic and the Mitcham Clinic) before 31 March 2005, after which the assets will be sold within eight weeks in a "fallback" process
• maintain and operate the businesses as competitive going concerns
• sell only to a purchaser approved by the Commission
• in Adelaide, release radiologists at any of the divestiture sites to acquire or work at any of the divestiture sites
• provide, if requested by a purchaser, the services of radiologists for a purchaser who may not have been able to attract a radiologist to service a divestiture business, and
• in regional areas encompassing five public hospitals (Port Lincoln, Port Pirie, Whyalla, Port Augusta and Clare), release radiologists from their restraint of trade obligations when the contracts for those hospitals have concluded so that the radiologist may be able to offer their services to a competing tenderer for the contract at the site.