ISTANBUL - Turkey's competition board said Wednesday that it had approved the privatisation of the country's biggest steel company, Erdemir, for a second time in order to override a court order blocking the sale.
The country's top administrative court had blocked the sale of Erdemir to Turkish industrial group OYAK in May on the grounds that the competition board had violated the law by approving the sale with eight members instead of seven as required by law.
The board said in a statement sent to the Istanbul stock exchange Wednesday that it had re-convened last week and found no faults with the sale of the company.
OYAK, an industrial group which represents the army pension fund, won the tender for a 46.12-percent stake in Erdemir with a bid of 2.77 billion dollars (2.2 billion euros) in October, beating giants such as Mittal and Arcelor, then the world's number one and two steelmakers.
Under the rules of the contract, OYAK also took a 3.17-percent stake held by the public Turkish Development Bank for 190.2 million dollars.
OYAK signed the Erdemir acquisition on February 27 and paid the full price at that time.
The sale of Erdemir, the only Turkish flat steel manufacturer, was a key item in Ankara's privatisation portfolio and an IMF-backed economic recovery programme.
09/20/2006 14:36 GMT