The chairman of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), Graeme Samuel has withdrawn from further deliberations on the proposed merger of National Australia Bank (NAB) and AXA Asia Pacific.
The ACCC chairman said that he had decided to recuse himself to remove any perception of a conflict of interest arising from current issues concerning his family’s investment in the DFO shopping centre chain.
The ACCC’s announcement said that while both NAB and AXA had been consulted and expressed no concern with Samuel’s continuing involvement, the Commission had accepted Samuel’s position that he would case to be involved in any further Commission deliberations on the NAB/AXA merger proposal.
NAB is one of the lenders to the DFO retail chain and Samuel’s family has interests in a company with shareholdings in the DFO retail chain.
