Brussels, 18/01/2002 (Agence Europe) - Tetra Laval has announced having initiated an appeal before the European Court of First Instance against the Commission ban on acquisition of Sidel. We recall that, on 31 October last, the Commission had prohibited the merger between Tetra Laval and Sidel, fearing it would strengthen domination by Tetra Pak, a subsidiary of Tetra Laval, on the liquid packaging market (see EUROPE of 31 October, p.12). The Swedish group is not convinced by the arguments put forward by the European Commission whereby the merger would lead to a conglomerate effect detrimental for competition, resulting from the presence of the two parties on the cardboard packaging and plastic bottling machine markets. Tetra Laval considers, moreover, that the Commission was not able to show in a credible way why the solutions proposed by the group were not sufficient to lift the reservation expressed by the Commission.