There could be a silver lining to this.If the merger does not go...

There could be a silver lining to this.
If the merger does not go ahead, ANZ are sitting on $3.5B of capital that they no longer need - they may choose to return this to whence it came, i.e. shareholders by way of off-market buy-back.
A possible scenario is ANZ share price is say $25 so the buy-back is done at $21.50 (14% discount) & say a capital component of $4 & fully franked dividend component of $17.50 with attached imputation credits of $7.50 giving total proceeds of $29 for zero percent taxpayers (pension funds, etc.).
ANZ could buy-back 160M share on this basis to return the capital which would effectively release $1.2B in otherwise inaccessible tax credit value to ANZ shareholders.
If government regulatory authorities are going to block the merger may as well make them pay for their actions. I know this may be considered a self-defeating proposition but I am wearing my ANZ shareholder hat as opposed to my Australian taxpayer hat.
The above figures are just ballpark potential numbers based more on providing nice round outcomes rather than a detailed estimation of capital/dividend components, etc. but the numbers are not unreasonable in comparison to previous off-market buy-backs e.g. CBA (the franked div component is a little bit high maybe).
Potentially releasing $1.2B to ANZ shareholders from the coffers of the ATO is not something I am averse to - it may also push regulators to more fully consider the ramifications of their decisions (if there is any doubt I do not agree with the ACCC decision but that is just my personal opinion).
What do others think - potential silver lining or am I just tilting at windmills?