Now to give you an idea of how much work went into getting us to...

Now to give you an idea of how much work went into getting us to this point -

My Application to the Panel was 23 pages - plus all the attachments of announcements etc. The quality of the application is very important - because the Panel review the application to decide whether there is any merit in what is being raised - and whether it is something that is within the limits of what the Panel can hear. I don't know the actual statistics, but from what I saw I would guess that around 80% of all applications to the Panel never get past this stage - and not being a lawyer and really having no idea what I was doing I just had to give it my best shot and hope that it all made sense and aroused the Panel's interest - and that it met the requirements for them to investigate and commence a hearing. Thankfully I somehow got past this point as the Panel decided to hear the matter.

The next thing that was required was a submission on the interim orders that I had asked for - another four pages

The next thing was I had to provide a rebuttal to some preliminary submissions from Alara - nine more pages

Somewhere about at this step I had to write another document for the Panel - another four pages

Then the Panel issued what is called their Brief - which contains questions addressed to each party - my answers went to ten more pages

Then there was rebuttals to Alara's answers to the questions that the Panel had asked them - 12 pages

Then there was a submission about another part - three more pages

Then the Panel provided a supplementary Brief with more questions - another ten pages

Then the rebuttals to Alara's answers to their supplementary questions - thirteen more pages.

So to get to the point where the Panel reached a decision and made their announcement took me 88 typed pages - and a hell of a lot of work! But it wasn't just me - the other three guys who joined the application also did a ton of work and made their own submissions on some of it too.

Is the Panel's process fair? Were the Panel fair to us? And did we get a fair hearing? Yes to all three. As you can see though - it is a very long process that requires a lot of work throughout to get a good result - and it was not just the typing of the 88 pages - there was an enormous amount of research and reading of old announcements, and cross-checking things that are said in submissions to see if they match what was said in old announcements etc. At times my brain was beyond fried - and now that it is all over - I can't even remember what days were like before I was up until 2am every night typing and researching and so forth - I am actually struggling to find normality again now.

Would I take Alara back to the Takeovers Panel again if needed - well yes - because otherwise all of this work would have been for nothing - but lets hope that doesn't become necessary. Certainly though if we have to do it again then we are now a lot better prepared, we have much more knowledge of the process etc - so it will be a bit easier second time around.