The sale of the country's largest concert promotion business, MCD to music giants, Live Nation has passed its final regulatory hurdle.
This follows the UK competition watchdog, the Competition and Markets Authority, finding that the deal does not raise competition concerns at the end of a 73 page report.
The ruling by the CMA after a 16 month long investigation follows the Irish based Competition and Consumer Protection Commission approving the deal last July.
The deal by Denis Desmond and Caroline Downey to sell half of MCD to their joint venture with Live Nation, LN Gaiety Holdings was first announced in August 2018.
Mr Desmond and Ms Downey previously fully controlled MCD, but by selling to LNG they effectively retain a half share.
In an interview today, Mr Desmond welcomed the CMA decision but stated that the process had left him "drained".
Mr Desmond said he was "very happy" that the deal has now been approved.
He stated however that the financial cost to LNG in dealing with the regulatory investigations has been very high with €3 million costs incurred by the joint venture.
He stated: "That is just third party costs and doesn't take into account the huge amount of staff resources and huge amount of time involving teams of people dealing with the process."
Mr Desmond said that it is good that the authorities looked at detail into the deal in two very thorough investigations, but it was "disappointing" that the process took up so much resources and time.
Mr Desmond stated that the deal is not anti-competitive and "we had proof of that with the history we have had with Live Nation in the UK. It is not like this was a new deal".
Mr Desmond stated that he has worked with Live Nation through their joint venture, LNG for the past 14 years.
He stated that the track record shows over the 14 years that the link up did not result in any anti-competitive issues for the UK market.
Asked has the deal now gone through, Mr Desmond stated: "It’s done."
After completing an initial Phase One investigation, the CMA was concerned that the deal could damage competition in live music promotion in Northern Ireland, after concluding that Live Nation could hinder MCD’s rival promoters’ ability to sell tickets through its subsidiary Ticketmaster.
This led to the deal being referred for an in-depth Phase 2 probe.
However as a result of the Phase Two investigation, the CMA found the deal should be cleared.
The CMA found that the merger is not likely to raise competition concerns as Live Nation would not be expected to have the incentive to harm rival music promoters by making it harder for them to sell tickets through Ticketmaster.
