The government intervened in the sale of Qantas quite aggressively as it was an Australian symbol - "The Spirit of Australia" and it was being sold a foreign private equity group which would render the slogan quite useless.

Qantas reputation was entirely built on being Australian and being owned by Australians.

Other reasons regulatory authorities (ACCC, SEC etc) would want to intervene in M&A (Merger and Acquistion) transactions could be:

• It would monopolize the market, too much power to a company. Does not promote competition and fair trade to both consumers and producers.

• Unjust M&A, breach some acts of Company Law.