Dye & Durham's Link takeover under scrutiny

The proposed acquisition of Link Administration Holdings by Canadian legal software firm Dye & Durham will be subject to a formal consultation by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.

The ACCC is seeking views on a proposed court-enforceable undertaking offered by Dye & Durham … in relation to its proposed acquisition of Link Administration Holdings.

The competition regulator had already warned that the acquisition raised concerns about possible “vertical integration of D&D’s operations and PEXA”.

Link owns 42.77 percent of digital conveyancing outfit PEXA.

“D&D and PEXA are participants in the conveyancing sector, which is in a transitional period as it moves to electronic conveyancing and digitalisation," the ACCC said.

The regulator wants a court-enforceable undertaking which would require D&D to “divest its entire Australian business to a purchaser approved by the ACCC.

“This divestiture would include the SAI Global and GlobalX businesses which D&D acquired in 2021 and would exclude the GlobalX UK operations.”

“D&D’s proposed divestiture undertaking seeks to address competition concerns by removing the potential vertical integration between D&D and PEXA,” ACCC chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb said.

“To accept D&D’s proposed undertaking, we need to be satisfied that it will effectively address all competition concerns but is also structured in a way that can be relied upon to be workable and effective."

Submissions on the proposed undertaking will be open until August 18.

The undertaking proposed by D&D has been published by the ACCC on its website [pdf].