Court reserves judgment

CAXTON: APPEAL AGAINST COMPETITION RULING SEEKS TO STOP MEDIA24 MERGER

- Ina Opperman

The Competition Appeal Court reserved judgment in an urgent application brought by Capital Newspapers and Caxton & CTP Publishers and Printers to interdict Media24 and others from implementing the proposed merger between Novus, On the Dot and Media24's community newspapers and soccer publications.

Capital Newspapers and Caxton & CTP Publishers want to stop the merger between Novus Print Proprietary Limited, Free 4 All Proprietary Limited, Intrepid Printers Proprietary Limited, Victory Ticket 376 Proprietary Limited and the Media Supply Chain Management Division operated and conducted by Media24 Proprietary Limited, referred to as On The Dot, the local news portfolio of Media24 and the football publication division of Media24 titled Soccer Laduma and Kick Off.

In addition, Capital Newspapers and Caxton & CTP Publishers want the decision by the Competition Commission to approve the merger to be declared inconsistent with the constitution and invalid and want it to be set aside.

Judges Dennis Davids, Lister Nuku and Thina Siwendu only heard arguments about urgent application to stop the merger and not to suspend the approval of the merger on Thursday.