EU greenlights controversial Bayer-Monsanto takeover
AFP News AFP News 22 hours ago
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The EU on Wednesday approved the proposed blockbuster buyout of US agri-giant Monsanto by German chemical firm Bayer after securing concessions in order to win approval.
"We have approved Bayer's plans to take over Monsanto because the parties' remedies, worth well over 6 billion euros ($7.4 billion), meet our competition concerns in full," said Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, the EU's anti-trust chief.
Brussels launched an in-depth investigation in August into the $66 billion (56-billion-euro) deal, which would create the world's largest integrated pesticides and seeds company and raised alarm among activists.
The European Commission, which serves as the powerful anti-trust regulator for the 28-nation European Union, at the time cited concerns it could reduce competition in key products for farmers.
Brussels made the decesion despite opposition by environmentalists who fear that the deal gives too much power to the world's leading manufacturers of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and the controversial weedkiller glyphosate.
The tie-up has already won approval by Chinese authorities, but still awaits the crucial approval by US regulators, which have voiced concerns.
The EU has won several concessions from Bayer including the announced sale in October by Bayer of parts of its agrochemical business to German rival BASF.
That deal would see Bayer sell the lion's share of its crop seeds units and its glyphosate herbicide business to BASF for 5.9 billion euros ($7 billion).
Earlier this month, BASF also committed to buying Bayer's vegetable seed business in a last minute concession to Brussels.
Bayer chief executive Werner Baumann said last month that if it receives the Commission's go-ahead, the Monsanto deal could be completed sometime in the second quarter.
In a letter to Vestager, the competition commissioner, activists from Friends of Europe warned against the merger due to its consequences for the environment.
"Blocking this deeply unpopular merger would be a big win for the EU -– over a million citizens have called on EU competition chief Margrethe Vestager to block this merger from hell," the activists said in a statement.
The EU acknowledged the opposition but insisted that it could "assess the merger solely from a competition perspective."
"This assessment must be impartial and is subject to the scrutiny of the European Courts," it added.
Bayer's takeover is the latest in a wave of consolidation in the competitive and politically sensitive agrochemicals sector.
China's state-owned ChemChina has completed its $43 billion takeover of Switzerland's Syngenta, and the nearly $150 billion tie-up of US giants Dow Chemical and DuPont has also been completed.
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China, Philippines agree 'prudent' cooperation on joint sea exploration
AFP News AFP News 14 hours ago March 22 Thu, 2018 News
China, Philippines agree 'prudent' cooperation on joint sea exploration
AFP News AFP News 14 hours ago
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Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano (L) and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi agreed to discuss joint oil and gas exploration in the South China Sea
China and the Philippines said Wednesday they will cautiously proceed with discussions on joint oil and gas exploration in the South China Sea, further reversing years of tensions over their competing claims to the region.
The two states have long been embroiled in a bitter dispute over the waterway -- with China claiming nearly the entire sea -- but Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has in recent years softened his predecessors' policy of opposing Beijing's claims.
The countries will "in a prudent and steady way advance cooperation on offshore oil and gas exploration", Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi told reporters after meeting Philippine Foreign Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano.
"The South China Sea disputes will no longer be a source of negative energy blocking the development of bilateral ties," he added.
The Philippines said earlier this month it was in talks with a Chinese state firm over joint exploration and extraction in the strategic and supposedly resource-rich sea.
Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam also claim all or part of the sea, and proposed cooperation between Manila and Beijing has caused alarm among neighbouring Southeast Asian countries in the past.
Cayetano said at the press conference that China and the Philippines "are finding a common legal framework to conduct joint exploration and surveys".
"Our relationship... is in a golden period, and with very positive momentum," he said, adding that the countries "are now ready to face more challenges together".
However no further details on the nature of the agreed cooperation were given.
Cayetano said last month that Manila would consult legal experts to make sure any accord would not infringe Philippine sovereign rights.
Duterte has described a proposed deal as akin to "co-ownership" of contested areas, saying this was preferable to the "massacre" of Filipino troops in a war with China.
Duterte's willingness to cooperate with China marks a turnaround from the stance of predecessor Benigno Aquino who accused Beijing of encroaching, occupying, and building structures on reefs and rocks that Manila claims as part of its exclusive economic zone.
Aquino won an international arbitration tribunal ruling in 2016 invalidating Beijing's claims, but Duterte set aside the ruling while courting investments and trade from the Philippines' giant neighbour, the world's second-largest economy.
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