Due to the expected strong concern about the impact on the market, BlueScope's merge plan of taking over OneSteel's sheet and coil distribution business has hit a hurdle.

It’s known that the proposed acquisition would remove OneSteel Sheet and Coil as an effective alternative to BlueScope in Western Australia. T

he Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) indicated that there could be troubles with any future merger or acquisition attempts between BlueScope and Arrium (formerly OneSteel) but given they are the only two steelmakers in Australia, there are likely to be competition issues identified whenever one company tries to acquire part of the other.

At present, the ACCC has called for comments on the OneSteel deal before a final decision to be made on February 20th, 2014.