55. Recommends that the Commission assess the extent to which refusal by a group with worldwide operations to surrender a site that it has decided to close to another group which might take it over or to a public entity for temporary use is permissible under European competition law;

Additionally, Mr Mazák considers that the General Court did not err in finding that a financial buyer would be a potential competitor if it had a real capacity to maintain or preserve effective competition on the market in question even though it had no experience on that market.

It was only when GM as the former owner refused to assign the necessary licences to a potential Chinese buyer, that the company ran out of options and decided to file for bankruptcy.

Essentially, the Commission cannot rule out the presence of state aid in the transaction and wishes to examine: - the conditions under which bids were invited for SDBO as there was no open invitation to tender and only seven potential purchasers, all French, were consulted and given only some 10 days to reply; - the FF 274.5 million capital injection into SDBO by Consortium de Réalisations (CDR) in January 1996 before its sale to Crédit Lyonnais: the other bidders were not told of that decision; - the price paid by CL, i.e; FF 50 million, for SDBO, whereas independent estimates put the average value of SDBO, after recapitalization, at ...[+++] FF 173 million.

In December Devco, on the advice of Nesbitt Burns, identified a short list of prospective purchasers, who were subsequently invited to submit definitive proposals.

The divestiture is now completed with the sale of these activities to a Luxembourg and a Spanish company willing to enter this market and compete against the PG/Fater joint venture and the other two established baby nappies manufacturers - Mölnlycke AB and Kimberly-Clark Corp. During the transitional period prior to the divestiture of FATER's businesses, the Commission carried out a close monitoring in order to ensure that the competitive potential of these businesses remained untouched as well as that the prospective buyer had sufficient financial resources and experience in consumer product markets in order to compete effectively in th ...[+++]e baby nappies market.